


Random Scenes

by DarkestSight (Daylight)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crack, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, RipFic, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2018-10-13 20:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 26,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10521558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daylight/pseuds/DarkestSight
Summary: A series of short scenes both serious and silly mainly focusing on Rip Hunter.Things involved or discussed in these scenes so far: game night, nudity, beer, minigolf, secrets, gateways to hell, first kills, missing teeth, Axel the time travelling rat, cookies, Booster Gold, Cisco and Felicity, Doctor Who, headaches, massages, human pillows, bedtime stories, trust, flying, nail polish, movie night, jelly beans, and orange tabby cats.





	1. We Don't Talk About Game Night

**Author's Note:**

> I really didn't mean to make another whole series of random Legends fics but I keep writing these really short scenes and posting them on tumblr (@darkestsight). I wasn't going to post them here at all because I thought I was only going to write one or two but I'm up to seven already so I thought I'd better consolidate them here. As usual with most of my fic, they will all be fairly Rip-centered.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” said Rip, his voice tinged with more than a little apprehension.

“Come on, Rip,” Sara pleaded drawing the words out into a whine, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “We all need the break. Besides, it’ll be fun.”

Rip shook his head. He’d learned from experience to always be wary of what the team considered to be fun. “Do you remember what happened the last time we attempted one of your so called ‘game nights’?” he said raising his eyebrows pointedly. “What happened to Dr. Palmer?”

From the other end of the bridge, a voice cried out, “You promised to never mention that again.”

Sara and Rip ignored it.

“It’s just poker,” insisted Sara. “Not Clue. Not Monopoly. And definitely not Twister. Just poker.”

“Just poker?” Rip repeated eyeing her suspiciously.

“Well...” said Sara, eyes sliding to the side as her lips quirked upward in a smirk. “Poker with the possible addition of strip poker.”

Rip covered his face in his hands and slowly counted to ten. “Fine!” he declared throwing his arms up into the air as he gave in. “But,” he added levelling a finger at her, “underwear stays on. I’ve been traumatized enough as it it.”

“Aww, shucks,” Sara declared snapping her fingers. “There’s goes my plans for the nude conga line.”

“For the last time,” Rip cried, “this is a time ship, not a nudist colony!”


	2. The Things We Do For Those We Love

“This is all your fault,” Leonard said and took a swig of his beer.

Rip turned to him and frowned. “How is it my fault?” he asked, and then added, “Other than the fact, according to you, everything is.”

The two were seated side by side on top a picnic table, each with a bottle of beer in their hand, not Rip’s usual choice of drink but it was all he was likely to get in a place like that and he had a feeling he might need it.

“If it wasn’t for you,” Leonard elaborated, “I wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t be about to...” He used his beer to gesture at the panorama laid out in front of them. “...do this,” he concluded and took another swig.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” Rip said pointedly, “this was Dr. Palmer’s idea. His latest team building exercise. You try saying no to him.” Recalling the earnest look in Ray’s puppy dog eyes when he’d made his request, Rip grimaced and took a drink of his own. 

“Ray should have those eyes of his registered as a lethal weapon,” said Snart, “but that’s not the point.”

Rip sighed. “Then what is the point?”

“The point,” Leonard explained, “is that if you’d never recruited me, I’d be back in Central City doing my thing, pulling off daring heists, causing mayhem, and being all in all a dastardly, callous hearted, badass criminal. Instead, not only am I saving the world on a daily basis but I’m also playing board games, participating in pyjama parties and movie nights, roasting marshmallows at the beach, going to karaoke bars. Imagine what my crew would say if they saw me now in this place about to do... this.” He scowled.

“None of that was my idea,” Rip contended. “I used to have quite a reputation myself, you know. I used to be known across time and space as one of the most daring, formidable Time Masters there ever was. If any time pirate saw me here, I’d never be taken seriously again.”

Leonard nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s this team of ours. They’re making us soft.”

Rip gazed over at the rest of the team, smiling, laughing, and bickering good-naturedly under the warm summer sun, and couldn’t help the flicker of fondness that passed through his heart. “Is that really such a bad thing?” he asked softly.

Leonard just continued to scowl.

“You’d never have met Sara either if I hadn’t recruited you,” Rip couldn’t help adding.

“Shut up,” Leonard grumbled. Taking in a deep breath, he gave a sullen sigh. “Think we can make a break for it?”

“No chance,” said Rip, shaking his head. “One step in the direction of the ship and Sara and Jax would be on us in a nanosecond.”

“So what do we do?” Leonard asked wearily, turning his head towards Rip.

Rip gazed over to where the team stood once more, at the strips of bright green astroturf, at the artificial ponds and wooden bridges, at the tiny windmill and the fairy tale castle.

Sighing, he said, “We go out there and be the toughest, most badass mini golfers we can possibly be.” He held out his beer to Snart.

“I’d better not regret this,” Leonard said as he clinked his bottle against Rip’s.

The two downed the rest of their drinks; then, with great reluctance, got up and made their way over to the rest of the team and the golf course.


	3. Sometimes It's Better Not To Know

The meeting was called because Sara had decided that certain revelations made during Rip’s absence needed to be addressed.

“It concerns secrets,” she said as she stood on bridge gazing pointedly at Rip, arms folded across her chest.

Hands jammed into his pockets, Rip shifted from foot to foot looking rather uncomfortable under the weight of her stare and those of the rest of the team currently surrounding them.

“In order to move forward as a team,” she continued, “we need to make sure there are no more secrets.”

Rip grimaced and looked even more uncomfortable.

“So, I for one,” said Sara as she finally got to the point, “would like to know if there’s anything else on the Waverider we should know about.”

Everyone gazed expectantly at Rip.

Rip in turn frowned, eyebrows drawing together. “Exactly what sort of things are we talking about?”

“Important things,” Amaya elaborated for Sara.

“Like, you know, a hidden armory,” Jax pointed out.

“Or a piece of a reality bending artifact,” Martin put in.

“Or a secret stash of vintage cereals,” Ray helpfully added.

“Wait,” said Nate, drawing everything to a halt. He swung his head towards Ray. “There’s a secret cereal stash? Why didn’t anyone tell me there was a secret cereal stash? Is there a secret cookie stash as well?”

“I don’t know,” Ray replied, a thoughtful look on his face. “That would be cool though.”

“Guys....” Sara began warningly but all eyes were turned on Rip once more.

Rip gazed back uncertainly. “I’m afraid there isn’t,” he said.

Shoulders slumped in disappointment.

“Pity,” said Mick. “Is there a secret sex dungeon?”

“What!” Rip cried. “No!”

“How about a secret robot army?” asked Ray with a grin.

Rip ran a hand across his face. “No, I don’t have a secret robot army.”

“What about,” said Jax, lips twitching with amusement, “a secret holodeck?”

Nate’s eyes lit up. “That would be so awesome.”

“Yeah,” said Ray. “Think of all the things we could do with it.”

“Guys, we’re trying to be serious here,” Sara snapped trying to regain control of the conversation.

“She’s right,” said Amaya. “You guys are being ridiculous.”

Martin nodded in agreement. “You might as well ask if there’s a secret portal to some hell dimension hidden away somewhere.”

Rip gave an awkward cough and gazed at the floor suddenly finding great interest in his shoes.

“Rip?” said Sara, narrowing her eyes at him.

He looked up at her, wincing guiltily.

Sara gave an exasperated sigh. “Please tell me there isn’t an actual gateway to hell on this ship.”

Rip rubbed the back of the neck. “Well, not a gateway so much as a cursed book with a gateway inside it.”

The team gazed at him in disbelief.

“A gateway to hell?” Sara said, incredulously.

“Well,” said Rip, “a dimension full of powerful bloodthirsty demons, so I suppose, yes, you could call it hell.”

The team continued to stare at him, wide-eyed.

“It’s not dangerous,” Rip quickly added. “Or at least, not very dangerous, not unless it’s actually activated. I brought it onboard so I could keep an eye on it and to make sure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Sara closed her eyes pressing a hand against her temple. “Where is it?’

“Uh.” Rip cleared his throat and admitted somewhat reluctantly, “Sealed inside a wall in what is now Dr. Heywood’s quarters.”

Nate’s eyes grew large. “Is that why I keep having these dreams about some guy with a deep voice asking me to set free the great evil one?”

“Rip...” said Sara, giving Nate an uneasy look.

“It’s alright. It’s alright,” said Rip, holding up his hands as he attempted to reassure her. “We’ve nothing to worry about so long as Dr. Heywood doesn’t start speaking in tongues and no one performs any animal sacrifices.”

Sara obviously did not agree with him. “I want that book off this ship,” she said as she glared at Rip. “And then I want you to make a list of all possible dangerous items still onboard. You’ve got that?”

Rip grimaced. “That might be a bit of a long list.”

Maybe it would have been better not knowing, Sara thought as she put her face in her hands.


	4. Missing Something, Rip?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for somewhat dark humor.

Ray and Nate stared at the object sitting on the table with equal expressions of disgust.

“Pick it up,” said Ray, jerking his head towards it.

Nate made a face. “I’m not picking it up,” he said. “You pick it up.”

Ray put up his hands and took a step back. “I’m not touching it.”

“Well, neither am I,” insisted Nate.

Amaya rolled her eyes at them. “Honestly,” she said. “The two of you act like such children sometimes.”

“Just sometimes?” said Mick, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t see what the big deal is anyway. It’s not like you’ve never seen something like it before.”

“Not like this,” said Nate, gesturing to the object on the table.

“Yeah,” Ray agreed. “I mean... is that blood?”

“What are you guys looking at?” asked Jax as he and Martin joined them. Then he saw it and his expression turned to one of revulsion. “Oh, gross. How the hell did that get there?”

“How do you think?” Mick said bluntly.

“I’m rather more concerned by who it belongs to,” said Martin, gazing at the object with a troubled expression.

They all stared down at it and wondered, dark and disturbing thoughts dancing through their heads.

“You guys find something?” asked Sara as she entered the room. “The rest of the Legion’s little club house is pretty much empty so please tell me you’ve got something.”

The team stepped aside and Ray gestured to the thing they’d found.

Frowning, Sara went over and picked it up.

It was a tooth. There was an odd symbol on it but it was definitely a tooth, a back molar complete with roots stained with rusty red blood.

“What...?” Sara said but then a cold feeling began to sink into her chest and her eyes slid almost involuntarily towards Rip who was examining something in another corner of the room. “Uh, Rip?”

“Yes?” he said, distractedly, and then looking up and seeing the rest of the team all gathered around the table, he went over to them. “What is it?”

Not knowing what to say, Sara simply held out the tooth.

Rip stared at it, his expression strangely blank. “Oh,” he said, reaching out to take the tooth from Sara. “I was wondering where that had got to.”

As the others watched with horrified expressions, Rip calmly put the tooth in his pocket.


	5. Bank Robbers and Cutpurses: Alternate Scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some dark angst for you. I cut this scene from my fic 'Bank Robbers and Cutpurses' because I thought it took away from some other stuff in the story, but since I loved it so much, I saved it and thought I'd share it.
> 
> Warning: There's nothing graphic in here but there's some dark, violent stuff that's hinted at that may be triggery for some people.

Snart pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Okay,” he said. “How about this: your first kill.”

Rip's eyes widened and he stared at Snart in disbelief. “My... my what?” he said, stuttering slightly, his voice falling to a hoarse whisper.

“Who was your first kill?” said Snart, matter-of-factly. “Now that's something I know you won't have forgotten.”

Rip swallowed convulsively and looked away, a dozen emotions passing across his pale face.

“Don't act like you've never killed anyone,” said Snart. “Please, I’ve seen you do it. You're quite the sharpshooter and I saw how quick little Michael was with a knife. You were pretty vicious for a kid. So who was it? How old were you when...?”

“I was eight,” Rip snapped, his voice now rising in anger. “Alright. I was eight. One of the older boys got a hold of me, dragged me into an alley. He was going to... If I hadn't...” He bit his lip and turned away.

Unwanted memories began pushing their way to the surface of Rip's mind: the hands grabbing him, the pain, the panic, the blood. He pushed back shoving the memories into the recesses of his mind once more. Squeezing his eyes shut, he took a deep breath and got his spiralling thoughts back in control, but with that control came the nauseating realization of what he just done.

He'd told Snart.

He'd told Snart, of all people, one of his darkest memories, one he hadn't even shared with his wife.

Rip cursed himself. What had he done? Whether it was due to his boiling anger or the concussion muddying his thoughts, it had been foolish to let his tongue slip like that. Bracing himself, he turned to look at Snart unsure what to expect. Disgust? Or perhaps triumph, pleased that Rip had finally revealed his true colours, shown that he wasn't the good man he pretended to be.

Leonard, however, wasn't even looking at him. He was gazing across the room, his expression surprisingly neutral. “I was seventeen,” he said. “Fresh off my second trip through juvie. Mick was off somewhere.” He made a vague gesture. “So I got myself involved with this crew. Guy in charge acted like he was my best friend, treated me real nice, always helped me out with whatever I needed; then after we finished this big job, he suddenly decided he didn't want to share. Took out the other two members of the crew before he turned on me. Luckily, I was a quicker than he was.”

Rip stared at him not knowing what to say.

“Ever since then I've always made sure I was the one in charge,” Snart continued. “That way no one could screw me over.”


	6. The Legends' New Official Mascot?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of my bizarre sense of humor.

“What the hell is that?”

Everything had been as usual in the Waverider’s galley that morning. Jax had been attempting to save breakfast from Martin’s atrocious cooking skills, Amaya had been searching fruitlessly for a clean fork, Nate and Ray had been fighting over the ketchup bottle, Sara had been drinking coffee as if it was the magical cure for all ills, and Mick had been shoveling hash browns into his mouth with his bare hands, the occasional one disappearing over his shoulder. 

But Rip’s sudden exclamation brought all of that to a halt.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up at him in surprise.

The last to arrive that morning and looking like he’d only just awoken, Rip was standing in the middle of the room and pointing at Mick, or rather, pointing at the thing currently sitting on his shoulder.

Mick gave a snort. “Don’t you know a rat when you see one?” he said and passed another hash brown up to the rodent currently ridding on his shoulder. The rat happily munched it down, its tiny cheeks bulging in and out as it chewed.

“I know it’s a rat,” Rip said in exasperation. “What I want to know is what the hell it’s doing on my ship?”

Jax shot Sara a look. “You didn’t tell him about the rat?”

“I thought you were going to tell him,” Sara shot back.

“Someone should have told him,” said Amaya. “It is his ship.”

“It probably would have been wise to mention something beforehand,” said Martin.

Nate frowned. “Is there a no pets policy because I was seriously thinking about…”

“Would someone please just explain to me about the rat!” Rip cried.

One by one all gazes turned to Ray.

Rip narrowed his eyes at the former billionaire. “Dr. Palmer, would you care to enlighten me?”

Ray cleared his throat. “Um, well, you see,” he began, fidgeting nervously, “this rat got onto the ship from somewhere, we’re not exactly sure where or how, but it got onboard, and funny story, do you remember when you used that EMP thing to knock out all the power and I got stuck as mini me back when you were, um,…” He trailed off wincing.

“An evil bastard,” Mick happily provided for him.

Rip sent Mick a glare before turning back to Ray. “I do.”

“Well,” Ray continued, “when I was running through the ship trying to get the power back up, this rat started chasing me. I managed to get away, obviously, but I thought later that I’d better catch it, so I put some traps down and I managed to get it but I couldn’t just kill it and I didn’t want to dump it anywhere because who knows what that might do to the timeline, but it so happened that we’d decided to celebrate Christmas and I thought what could be a better present for Mick than a pet rat, and so I, um, gave it to him.”

Rip stared at Ray in disbelief. “You’re telling me you found a stray rat onboard, a potentially disease carrying rodent which could have done who knows how much damage to the inner workings of the ship, and you thought it would be a great idea to give it to Mick as a pet?”

“No diseases,” Ray said, quickly. “I had Gideon check, but yes, that’s pretty much the gist of it.” He gave a wavering smile.

Rip groaned and put his face in his hands.

The rest of the team stood by bracing for the inevitable explosion.

Leaning towards Jax, Nate said in a side whisper, “Does he do this a lot?”

“You get used to it,” Jax said with a shrug.

After a moment, Rip peeked out from between his fingers. He gazed at the rat which wiggled its nose at him, and then at Mick who glared at him defiantly, the unvoiced threat obvious in his face and his posture.

Rip let out a weary sigh. “I suppose you’ve already given it a name.”

“Axle,” Mick replied, still glaring at him.

“Axle,” Rip repeated.

He stared at the rat some more.

Mick put a possessive hand over his pet.

The team held their breath, Sara carefully maneuvering herself closer so she could step in between Rip and Mick if necessary.

Finally, Rip took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Fine,” he declared, waving a hand in the air. “Shall I put ‘Axle’ down as the team’s official mascot then?”

The team gazed at him uncertainly.

“So, you’re actually okay with this?” said Sara, raising her eyebrows incredulously.

“Yeah, man,” said Jax. “I thought for sure you’d want to dump it off at our next stop.”

“It is rather unexpected,” said Martin.

“After everything I’ve been through sharing the ship with a rat is hardly the worst thing,” Rip said. “And Mr. Rory does seem rather fond of it,” he added as he gazed at Mick who was currently feeding the rat another hash brown. “So long as it’s not left free to run around the ship and so long as we’re not going to eat it, it’s fine with me.”

Amaya frowned. “I’m sorry. Did you say ‘eat it’?”

Rip gave a grimace. “Rats taste terrible,” he said and went over to get his morning coffee.

Eyes wide, the team exchanged stunned looks.

Mick, however, just shrugged. “He’s right. Rat’s disgusting,” he said as he reached up to scratch Axle under the chin.


	7. Cookies for Everyone!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I'm very bad at keeping this updated. Oh, well, here are a few more random scenes from tumblr.

The Legends stared at Rip.

Rip stared back at them and blinked. His eyes were reddened and weighed down with dark bags, his auburn hair stuck up at odd angles, and his rumpled clothes were streaked with flour and several different colours of icing. He was also fidgeting with the type of jittery twitchiness that came with too much caffeine or too little sleep.

“I, uh...” He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah, we can see that,” said Jax, gazing in wide-eyed amazement at the spectacle displayed on the table in front of them.

Sara frowned looking rather more concerned than amazed. “You were up all night doing this?”

Rip winced sheepishly. “I admittedly may have overdone things somewhat.”

“I’ll say,” said Amaya. “This is...” She trailed off and simply gestured at the table at a loss for words.

“Well, it certainly explains the smell,” Martin said, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” said Nate with a nod. “I can’t imagine there are many timeships that smell entirely of cookies.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the rest of the team, except for Mick who was too busy filling his mouth.

The source of the smell, which had greeted the team when they'd emerged from their quarters that morning, was obvious. The galley table was covered in plates and bowls and containers of all sizes, and each of them was filled with mounds of cookies, all sorts of cookies There were chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies. There were ginger snaps and raspberry thumbprints. There was shortbread and gingerbread, oatmeal and butter pecan, snickerdoodles and coconut macaroons, as well as several cookies the team couldn’t identify. A number of the cookies had even been crafted into different shapes and decorated with colourful icing.

Jax picked up a cookie that had been made to look like the face of a clock. “These are awesome.”

“Yes, well,” Rip said, somewhat bashfully. “I got a bit tired of just baking around four in the morning so I thought I’d do some decorating as well. I’m still honing my technique.”

“Looks pretty honed to me,” said Nate, impressed.

Rip bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck again. “Well, dig in,” he said, gesturing to the cookies. “Seems a shame for them to go to waste.”

“It's a bit early for cookies but I suppose...” Martin reached out and grabbed a raspberry thumbprint. 

The rest of the team, minus Mick who was already eating and had yet to stop, followed suit.

“Oh, my God,” Amaya exclaimed once she’d taken a bite, a look of complete rapture coming over her face.

There were similar exclamations and looks from the rest of the team.

“These are incredible,” Nate said and shoved another cookie in his mouth.

“It definitely seems our former captain has a talent for baking,” said Martin.

Jax snorted. “That’s an understatement.” He turned to Rip. “You should have told us, man. This sort of talent needs to be shared.”

Mick grunted something in agreement through his mouthful of cookies.

“I suppose it’s a hobby I could indulge in more often,” said Rip, a small smile appearing on his face. 

A beep sounded from the cooking area. 

“Ah, the double chocolate chunks are done. I need to get them out and put the peanut butter biscuits in. It’s about time to take the almond biscuits off the cooling racks too. I was thinking of making something with hazelnut and caramel next.” Rip turned to attend to his cookies but was stopped by a very solid grip on his arm.

“How about you go to bed and try getting some sleep instead,” Sara said firmly. “I think we’ve got enough cookies for now.”

“Oh, right,” said Rip, looking sheepish once more, obviously more than a little out of it from the lack of sleep.

Sara began escorting Rip out of the galley insistent on ensuring he made it all the way back to his quarters and into bed but the two stopped when they caught sight of Ray.

Ray was standing quietly a few feet from the rest of the cookie-eating group and gazing at the table with a rather forlorn expression.

“Oh, Dr. Palmer,” Rip said as sudden realization lit his face. “I forgot to tell you the shortbread biscuits are gluten free.”

The forlorn expression vanished as hope appeared in Ray’s eyes. “Really?”

Rip nodded. “It wasn’t too difficult. I just used rice flour and few other things.”

Going over to the table, Ray picked up one of the shortbread cookies and tentatively took a bite. The look that appeared on his face was one of pure bliss. “My God.” He quickly devoured the rest of the cookie. “Oh, my God!” He grabbed another and ate it just as quickly as the first.

Mick, who had been going around the table sampling at least one of every cookie, paused in his eating and eyed Ray. “Hey, Haircut, pass one over,” he said making a ‘give me’ gesture with his hand.

Eyes widening, Ray snatched the bowl containing the shortbread off the table and took a step back. “Mine,” he declared and shoved another cookie in his mouth.

Scowling, Mick moved around the table towards Ray. “You know there’s other people around here who might like some shortbread too.”

Ray clutched the bowl against his chest and stepped back once more. “Mine,” he said again and quickly devoured another cookie as he watched Mick warily.

Mick growled. “Hand them over.”

Ray shook his head unable to speak now due to all the cookies in his mouth.

Tension rose as they stood staring at each other, unmoving except for Ray’s constant cookie munching, and then suddenly, Ray turned and sprinted off into the rest of the ship with a cry of, “Mine!”

Mick immediately gave chase. “Come back here!” 

Rip and Sara watched them go, Rip with wide-eyed disbelief, Sara with exasperation.

“I think you’d better make another batch of that shortbread before you go to bed,” Sara said.

Rip nodded, eyes still fixed on the door through which Mick and Ray had just disappeared. “Good idea.”


	8. Booster Gold is Your What?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short scene from a fic I'll probably never get around to writing. This will probably make more sense if you already know who the character of Booster Gold is. He's another time travelling superhero from the comics and has yet to appear in the Arrowverse but he happens to be rather important to Rip.

“So,” Sara said, leaning forward, hands resting on the bridge’s central console, “we’ve got a decision to make.”

She looked around at the rest of the team. They were all gathered around the console and none of them looked happy.

Across from her, Rip folded his arms over his chest and gazed at the floor.

“We’ve got to decide,” Sara continued, “whether we’re going to help Booster or whether we’re going to leave him to deal with his own mess.”

The team exchanged glances.

Ray was the first to speak. “Look,” he said, “I know he’s been a bit of a pain and I know he’s caused a few problems since he turned up…”

“A few?” Jax interjected, sarcastically.

“But,” Ray continued, “Booster Gold is still a superhero. He’s one of us.”

Amaya looked unmoved. “Is he though? From what I saw, all he really fights for is fame and glory.”

“Not to mention money,” said Jax, scowling. “The guy’s arrogant, smug, self-centered…”

“In other words, a complete jackass,” said Mick with a smirk.

Nate grimaced. “Well, yeah,” he said, “but are we really going to leave him to die?”

There was a moment of silence as Nate’s statement sunk in.

“Are we prepared to die for him though?” Martin countered. “That may very well occur if we try to save him, and like Sara said, Booster’s the one who caused this whole debacle in the first place. He has no one to blame but himself.”

“Let the guy get out of his own mess,” Mick put in. “That’s what I say.”

As the team grew silent once more, Sara turned to the only member who had yet to voice an opinion. “Rip?”

Rip remained quiet, staring at the ground.

“Nothing to say?” Sara prompted. “I mean you’ve known the guy longer than any of us.”

Sighing, Rip finally looked up. “I’m afraid there really isn’t any choice,” he said. “We have to help him.”

The team stared at him in surprise.

“You want to help him?” Nate said in disbelief. “Seriously, you?”

Ray’s eyebrows knit together as he frowned. “No offense but I’m finding that a bit hard to believe considering the two of you have been fighting almost non-stop since he got here.”

“Yeah,” said Jax. “Weren’t you the one who went on a fifteen minute rant about him just a few hours ago?”

Rip made a face. “That may very well be, but unfortunately, the man is important to the timeline and therefore we must ensure he doesn’t die.”

“How is he important to the timeline?” asked Amaya, curiously.

“That does seem rather unlikely,” said Martin, “unless in the future the man actually becomes the hero he claims to be.”

Rip awkwardly cleared his throat. “In a sense,” he said, talking with his hands as he tended to do whenever he grew agitated. “He does become a better hero in future, though I can’t say there’s much improvement in terms of his personality, but that’s not the reason he’s important.”

Sara narrowed her eyes at him. She was developing a sixth sense for when Rip was holding things back and she was getting that feeling now. “So, why is he so important to the timeline then?”

Rip grimaced. “Actually,” he began, slowly and reluctantly, “it’s not the fact he’s important to the timeline so much as the fact he’s important to my timeline.”

The Legends gazed at him in confusion.

“What?” said Mick. “Poster Boy save your butt at some point?”

“Not exactly,” said Rip.

Tired of him beating around the bush, Sara crossed her arms over her chest and gave him her best glare. “Explain.”

Still unwilling to enlighten them, Rip stood there a moment silently wringing his hands, but under the weight of Sara’s glare, he finally gave in, shoulders slumping, arms falling down to his sides.

“Michael Carter,” he said. “His real name is Michael Carter.

“Yes,” Sara replied, nodding. “You told us that earlier. What does it have to do with anything?”

“It’s a stupid name,” Mick said with a snort.

Rip let out a bitter laugh. “Well, it’s a good thing I changed mine then.”

It took a moment but dawning realization slowly began to travel through the group.

“My God,” said Martin, eyes widening.

“No way,” said Ray.

“You can’t seriously be saying…” Jax began and shook his head in disbelief.

Nate and Amaya just looked confused.

Mick simply started laughing.

Sara caught on a second later. “Your name,” she said as she put the pieces together. “Your birth name. Michael…”

“…Carter junior,” Rip finished for her and let out a long, weary sigh.

Nate gazed at him, agog. “But he’s…” he stuttered, “and you’re so…”

Rip gave him a sour look and Nate quickly shut his mouth.

Mick was still laughing, bent over, hands over his stomach. “That’s perfect,” he said between gasps for air.

Rip rolled his eyes.

“So, presumably,” said Martin, gathering himself after the shock, “in Booster’s current timeline, you’ve yet to be conceived.”

Rip nodded. “Which is why if he’s at risk of dying, my timeline, and therefore all of yours as well, are in jeopardy.”

“He doesn’t know, does he?” said Jax, gazing at Rip with sympathy.

“Of course not,” Rip said, and then turning away, added, “I’m not sure if he even knew after the fact.”

“Wait,” said Sara, holding up a finger. “You said you were an orphan like all the Time Masters so does that mean…”

Grimacing, Rip waved a hand in the air. “It’s complicated,” he said. “My whole early life is complicated and there’s a lot I don’t even know. I barely remember my birth mother. I certainly don’t remember Booster ever being around. The only reason I know he’s my father is because we had to do a project using DNA profiling during our first year at the Time Master academy. We had to research our ancestors back five generations so we didn’t do something stupid like accidentally kill our own grandfather. I almost failed the project because some of my DNA was apparently from the wrong century.” Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out before he continued. “Look, I know Booster has been somewhat of an annoyance…”

“This seriously puts everything that’s happened recently in a different light,” said Ray, eyes turned inward as he went over everything that had happened since they’d met Booster.

“Yes, well,” said Rip, “due to us both being time travellers, mine and my father’s paths have crossed a few times, and frankly, we’ve never really gotten along.”

Having finally stopped laughing and regained his breath, Mick came over and clapped Rip on the back. “Trust me,” he said. “When it comes to shitty fathers, you’ve got nothing.”

Rip gazed at him with narrowed eyes, clearly unable to decide whether to be grateful or offended.

“But he’s still your dad,” Jax pointed out.

“Yes, he is.” Bowing his head, Rip let out another sigh. “Unfortunately.”

Silence fell over the bridge.

It was Amaya who broke it. “I suppose this means our decision’s been made.”

All gazes, including Rip’s, turned to Sara awaiting her verdict.

“I suppose it has.” Sara looked at Rip, meeting his eyes with a steady gaze. “Saddle up, team,” she said as her lips twisted into a wry smile. “Looks like it’s time to save Rip’s daddy.”


	9. Rip vs Cisco and Felicity

“Oh, wow,” said Felicity, her wide eyes roving up and down Rip as she took him in. “He’s totally like a British, time travelling, space cowboy, isn’t he?” She turned to Ray and Sara. “Why didn’t you guys tell us?”

The pair exchanged bemused looks.

“Uh,” Sara said, uncertainly. “We wanted it to be a surprise?”

Cisco, his own eyes equally focused on Rip, nodded. “He’s like a combination of Captain Malcolm Reynolds and the Doctor from Doctor Who.”

Felicity slapped his arm. “Exactly!”

Rip, who had been somewhat taken aback by the pair’s exuberant scrutiny, gazed from one to the other feeling rather baffled. “I’m sorry. What are you talking about?”

Cisco raised his eyebrows and gave Rip a disbelieving look. “You’ve never seen Firefly?”

Rip shook his head.

“Doctor Who?”

Rip shook his head again, the lines on his forehead deepening. “I presume you’re talking about television programs of some kind.”

Cisco and Felicity gazed at each other in shock.

“You’ve never even heard of them?” Felicity said, incredulously. “They’re only two of the best sci-fi shows ever.”

Rip gave a tired sigh. “I’m from the twenty-second century. I can’t be expected to know everything about this time period.”

“That’s no excuse,” replied Felicity.

“Seriously, Ray,” said Cisco, turning to the former billionaire. “You, of all people, didn’t think to enlighten this poor deprived man.”

Ray gave an apologetic shrug. “We’ve only just gotten him to watch Star Wars. We thought we’d try Star Trek next; then move our way up.”

“But Doctor Who’s got the whole time travel thing,” Felicity asserted. “I bet he could tell you all the ways they got it wrong.”

“Not to mention…” Cisco gestured at Rip. “I mean just look at him.”

Everyone, much to Rip’s increased annoyance, looked at him.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other feeling more than a little uncomfortable under their gazes. “Listen,” he said, raising a hand and twirling it around in the air, “could we maybe move on to more important topics of discussion. There is the whole matter of the…”

“I don’t see it,” said Felicity, frowning.

“Seasons five to seven,” Cisco said, gazing at her pointedly. “A certain male companion.”

Felicity’s eyes widened and she grabbed Cisco’s arm. “Oh, my God. I didn’t see it until now because of the beard but you’re right. He looks just like him.”

“Like who?” Rip demanded, growing more confused the longer the conversation went on.

“Rory,” Cisco declared.

Rip gave an incredulous snort. “You think I look like Mick?”

Rolling his eyes, Cisco shook his head. “There are way too many people named Rory these days. I meant Rory Williams.”

“Pond,” Felicity quickly corrected him.

“Fine,” Cisco conceded. “Pond. Though technically I should say he looks like the actor. What’s his name?”

“Uh, Arthur something,” supplied Felicity.

“Right, Arthur something.”

Rip rubbed tiredly at his forehead. “Could we just…”

“Hey, wait,” Felicity suddenly exclaimed. “You’re from the future. Does that mean you know everything that’s going to happen to us?”

Cisco’s eyes widened. “My God. Felicity’s right. You could tell us our future. We’re famous by your time, right? Semi-famous, at least.” He gazed hopefully at Rip.

Assuming one of his more sterner expressions, Rip folded his arms over his chest. “I’m afraid I can’t disclose anything that may effect the timeline.”

Felicity didn’t appear remotely intimidated by the stern look but then she’d been putting up with Oliver Queen for years. “Nothing at all?” she said moving a step closer to Rip. “Couldn’t you at least give us a hint?” Her lips pouted as she gazed pleadingly up at him.

Rip eyed her, somewhat disconcerted but remaining steadfast. “Knowing your own future is much too dangerous. Even a hint could cause you to do things that could lead to irreparable damage.”

“I hate to say it, but considering everything that’s happened with Barry, I have to agree,” Cisco said nodding, but then his eyes lit up once more and he too took a step closer to Rip. “But you could tell us generic stuff about what the future’s like, couldn’t you?”

“Oh,” said Felicity, enthusiastically catching on. “Like do we ever actually get real flying cars?”

“Or jet packs?” said Cisco. “Please say we get jet packs.”

“What about cybernetic implants?”

“And lunar colonies?”

“Are there like robots everywhere?”

Rip was about to get whiplash from swinging his head back and forth from one to the other. “No. I mean, well, yes, sort of. It depends on when and where you’re talking about.”

“Can you take us?” said Cisco. “To the future, I mean, the far future.”

“Oh, my God, yes,” said Felicity. “I want to see all the future space cities.”

“Plus it would be so cool to travel in the Waverider again.”

“Totally.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” declared Rip, raising his hands to bring a halt the duo’s babbling. He took a deep breath trying to maintain the rapidly diminishing control on his temper. “When were you on my ship?”

“During the last invasion,” Cisco explained. “We took a trip back to the 1950s.”

“It was awesome,” Felicity declared with a giant grin, and then the grin turned into a grimace. “Though I may have kind of thrown up on your bridge.” The grimace grew deeper. “Twice.”

Cisco leaned towards her and said in a pseudo whisper, “Actually, I think it was three times.”

“Okay, so maybe it was three times,” Felicity admitted, sheepishly. “But your ship is totally awesome. There’s so many things I want to know about it.”

Cisco nodded. “Like how fast can it go?” he asked. “Specifically, in space and in the temporal zone. Can you even measure speed in the temporal zone if there’s no time?”

“Yeah,” said Felicity, “and what type of energy source does it use? It’s got be something pretty powerful to punch through time. Do you use multiple sources? What do you do if you run out of power?”

“What’s the hull made of? I’d really like to get my hand on some of it. Do you need to use a special type of alloy for time travel?”

“And what about the A.I.? Was she made specifically for the ship? What sort of things can she do? Is she really sentient? Can I pretty, pretty please take a peek at her programing? Just a peek. Please.”

Unable to get a word in edgeways, Rip stared at them caught between exasperation and bewilderment. Were these really the geniuses behind two of the centuries greatest heroes, he wondered, or was this one of his team’s little jokes? As Felicity and Cisco continued to bombard him with questions, he gazed over their heads at Sara and Ray sending them a desperate look, silently pleading for them to rescue him.

“Um, guys,” Ray said, thankfully getting the message, “maybe you could leave off the questions until after we’ve dealt with our little problem.”

“Yeah,” said Sara, coming over and placing a hand on Rip’s shoulder. “I’m sure Rip will be more than happy to answer all your questions when we're done.” A wicked smirk played at her lips as she gazed at Rip completely ignoring the death glare he was sending her. “I’d bet he’d even be willing to give you guys a personal tour of the ship.”

Cisco and Felicity’s eyes gleamed. “Awesome,” they said in unison.

Rip let out a long and heartfelt groan.


	10. The Return of Axel, the Time Travelling Rat

Rip climbed the steps into to his study only to be greeted by the sight of Mick’s fairly large backside. It protruded in the air as the man knelt on the floor peering under one of the leather armchairs.

Eyes wide, Rip stared in shock.

It wasn’t Mick’s odd actions though that shocked Rip. He came across the team doing odd things all the time. Just the other day, he’d encountered Martin in the corridor trying and failing to surreptitiously smuggle a large box of Twizzlers into his quarters. The day before that he’d caught Jax talking to the malfunctioning waste recycler. The day before that he’d found Sara and Amaya in the galley using a box of Fruit Loops and a rare urn he’d picked up in ancient Greece to practice their hand-eye coordination, and the day before that he’d entered the library only to find Ray and Nate standing on desks, flapping their arms about, and making various bird noises.

Acting oddly on the Waverider was the norm.

What shocked Rip was the current state of his study. The place looked like it had been ransacked. Almost nothing was where it should have been. The furniture had been shifted into various new positions, the books and papers had been scattered about, and his collected keepsakes, which before had been neatly displayed, were now haphazardly dumped in random places around the room. It was a complete and utter mess.

“What the hell are you doing?” Rip demanded.

Mick, not showing the slightest sign of being startled by Rip’s sudden arrival or even bothering to shift from his position on the floor, replied, “None of your business, Hunter.” He then stuck his arm under the chair as far it would go and proceeded to make strange kissing noises.

Rip gave him an exasperated look, something which was completely wasted on Mick as he was still concentrating on the space beneath the armchair. “Considering this is my study and these are my things, I’d say it very much is my business.”

Mick gave an unimpressed grunt in reply. Giving up on the chair, he went over to the wooden chest at the back of the study. After checking behind it, he opened it up and began taking things out tossing them onto the floor.

Rip grit his teeth. “Do you mind?”

“Nope,” Mick replied as he continued to rummage through the chest.

Rip rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and took a deep breath, only just managing to keep a rein on his temper. “I take it you’re looking for something?”

“No duh,” said Mick. Clearly not finding whatever it was in the chest, he got up and went over to the tall cabinet in the corner of the room.

Rip quickly positioned himself between Mick and the cabinet. “This thing you’re looking for wouldn’t happen to be a certain flea-bitten rodent, would it? One which I quite clearly told you should not be allowed to roam freely around the ship under any circumstances.”

Mick glared at him. “Axel doesn’t have fleas.” He placed a large hand against Rip’s shoulder and shoved him aside. Opening the cabinet door, he proceeded to do the same thing he’d done to the chest tossing it’s entire contents onto the floor one item at a time.

The forceful shove had caused Rip to stumble a few steps but he managed to keep his balance. Letting out an indignant huff, he crossed his arms over his chest. “You know you won’t find him in there.”

Mick didn’t reply, just kept dumping stuff adding to the already large mess on the floor.

“That rat of yours has probably got into the Waverider’s inner workings by now,” Rip continued as he watched. “In fact,” he added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s tried to chew through some of the wires and managed to get himself electrocuted.”

Mick swung towards him, a look of fury on his face. “Axel’s not dead. He’s not. He’s...” He stopped and swallowed.

Rip’s forehead creased into a frown. There was more than just fury on Mick’s face. There was fear as well. The man seemed genuinely upset. “My apologies,” he said. “I hadn’t realized you were so fond of him.”

Mick scowled and looked away, obviously not liking the fact he’d been caught actually caring about something. “Yeah, well, it’s just a stupid rat but you know Haircut gave it to me and he’d be upset if I lost it, and it’s not like I’ve ever had a pet before.”

Rip found himself softening and a sad smile appeared on his face. Despite his efforts to deny it, Mick clearly loved that rat with all his well-hidden heart. “Well, Mr. Rory,” he said. “Thankfully, your worries are about to end.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mick, frowning.

Rip reached into his long coat and into an inner pocket where something small and furry had been contentedly dozing in the warm, dark confines. He pulled it out.

Axel blinked sleepily at Mick as Rip held the rat out to him.

“Axel!” Mick exclaimed, his eyes widening. He reached out and took the rat cradling him close to his chest.

“I found him in my quarters trying to make a nest in one of my cushions,” Rip explained.

Mick gazed in happy amazement at the rat in his hands and gently stroked his back. In response, Axel sniffed Mick’s fingers, and then after a little squirming about, clambered up to his favourite spot on Mick’s shoulder.

“Just please be more careful with him,” said Rip, “for Axel’s sake as well as the ship’s. In fact, I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if you got Dr. Palmer to fit him with a microchip so Gideon can track him properly. I’m sure it’ll save us all a lot of trouble,” he added because he was sure that despite his pleas, this would undoubtedly happen again.

Finally looking away from Axel, Mick grinned at Rip, not one of his usual smirks but a genuine grin. “Thanks, English,” he said grabbing him by the shoulder.

Rip had only a moment to worry about this gesture before, to his utter amazement, Mick pulled him into a brief but firm hug. He was still in shock when Mick let go, gave him a, admittedly somewhat painful, slap on the back, and headed out of the room happily making little kissing noises at Axel as he did so.

Who would have believed it, thought Rip as he watched him go. Shaking himself from his stupor, he turned back to his study and suddenly became aware once again of the complete mess it was in. All warm feelings he’d had for Mick vanished. 

“Mr. Rory!” he yelled after the retreating man. “Get back here and clean this up!”

Mick, predictably, did not return.

Giving a tired sigh, Rip surrendered to the inevitable and began the long process of restoring his study to its previous state.


	11. A Little Help From a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a little Rip & Ray friendship with some hurt/comfort and fluff

The pain in Rip’s head was intense. It was all encompassing making it hard for him to even think. Every sound, every movement, every glint of light seemed to make it worse, and if that wasn’t enough, it was also accompanied by an unpleasant queasiness in his stomach which left him, to put it mildly, feeling quite miserable. All he wanted to do was go to his quarters and curl up on his bed in the dark until it all went away.

Instead, he was in his study sitting in one of the leather armchairs as he listened to Dr. Palmer prattle on about who knows what. He’d been attempting to get some work done, admittedly not very successfully, when Ray had entered and begun chatting away escalating the pain in Rip’s head to an increasingly unbearable level. He wasn’t even sure what Ray wanted, if he’d just joined him because he desired some company or if there was something he actually needed. Rip hadn’t really been paying attention to what he’d been saying. All he could think about was how desperately he wanted it to stop.

Completely oblivious, Ray continued talking, perched on the edge of the table in the centre of the room, a cheerful smile on his face, occasionally gesturing animatedly as he elaborated on some point.

“And you know what we should do next time? I mean if it ever does happen again and if we were in a position to take advantage of it. Not that I’m suggesting we go searching for this sort of thing. Once was more than enough. I’m just saying if it did happen again we might actually be able to…”

Rip grit his teeth and rubbed the side of his head, a completely useless gesture as it did nothing to relieve the pain.

“Maybe we could even make a whole day of it. You never know. It might be fun. All we have to do is…”

The voice was ceaseless, as inescapable as the pain in his head and Rip had had enough. “For once would you please just shut up!” he exclaimed.

Ray stopped talking in mid-sentence, one hand frozen in the air as the smile fell from his face, his expression going from exuberant and cheerful to stunned and hurt like a kicked puppy.

Rip immediately regretted what he had said, the guilt washing over him a hundred times worse than the nausea. “Dr. Palmer, I…” He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to apologize for something so cruel and unwarranted. If only the pain would let up enough for him to think properly. He hadn’t meant to hurt Ray. He just wanted the pain to stop.

“Sorry,” Ray said, quickly, looking away. “I… I didn’t mean to… I should probably go.” He stood up and swiftly began striding out of the room.

“Ray…” Rip called after him but the man didn’t stop and was soon gone.

Groaning, Rip leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees and placing his face in his hands. He’d fucked up. He’d really fucked up. Again. He might as well add it to his long list of fuck ups, the one that seemed to be growing longer all the time. Pain stabbed through his skull once more and he grimaced, eyes squeezing tightly shut and jaw clenching. He swallowed as the nausea caused his stomach to roll. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to do anything in case it made things worse so he just stayed where he was in the same position with his head in his hands feeling completely and utterly wretched.

Time passed in a fuzzy haze of pain. Rip wasn’t sure how much time. It felt like endless hours but it was probably only a few minutes before he heard the sound of someone approaching. Still unwilling to move, he didn’t bother to look up as the footsteps drew nearer. He didn’t even look up when the rustle of clothing and slight creaking of joints indicated that the person had knelt down beside his chair. It wasn’t until a voice by his ear gave a soft “Hey” that he finally lifted his head from his hands and looked.

It was Ray. He had returned and was kneeling beside Rip, a tentative smile on his face.

Rip was so surprised that all he could do was stare.

“I, uh, picked this up from the medbay,” Ray said holding up a loaded injector, a more advanced version of a syringe. “It’s a painkiller. It should help with that headache of yours.”

Rip blinked at Ray, brow wrinkling in confusion. He had yelled at Ray and the man had gone to get him an analgesic?

“Do you mind if I…” Ray gestured to Rip’s neck.

Not wanting to jar his head anymore than necessary, Rip gave the tiniest of nods in consent.

Ray pulled back the collar of Rip’s shirt, placed the injector against his neck, and injected the analgesic.

Injectors were painless but the cold feel of it against his neck made Rip grimace. As he waited for the drug to kick in, he took several slow deep breaths trying to breathe through the pain and the nausea. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Ray making himself comfortable on the floor beside him, sitting quietly as he too settled in to wait.

Fortunately, the painkillers stocked in the Waverider’s medbay worked fast and within a few minutes, Rip could feel the pain starting to fade and the tension he hadn’t even realized his body had been holding began to melt away. The nausea improved too and he soon felt well enough to sit up.

“Better?” asked Ray.

“Much,” Rip replied. “Thank you.” Not only had the pain died down but his head felt a lot clearer which was an immense relief. It was as if a fog had been lifted from his mind and he could finally think again. He almost felt back to normal though there was still a mild ache in his head, and as he rubbed the back of his neck, he could still feel some of the tension lingering there.

Catching sight of the movement, Ray said, “Want a massage?” and then quickly added, “If that’s not too weird or anything. It might help.”

Once more, Rip felt himself at a loss for words. No one had ever offered to give him a massage before, not even Miranda. “Uh, yes,” he said awkwardly after a moment’s hesitation. “Why not. If you really think it might help.”

Grinning, Ray stood up and took up a position behind Rip. “I used to give massages to Anna. She’d get these terrible migraines and that was the only thing that really seemed to help.”

Rip tried not to stiffen as he felt Ray’s hands land on his shoulders but it was hard. His nerves felt oddly sensitive, raw and twitchy, and it made him realize just how long it had been since anyone had actually touched him.

Ray began by digging his thumbs into the tight muscles of Rip’s back and neck. It hurt a bit at first but soon the pain evaporated and Rip was left with the pleasant sensation of Ray rhythmically kneading his shoulders. He couldn’t deny it felt good, really good. Ray certainly had a talent for this. Rip began to relax losing himself in the sensation, a feeling of peace descending on him.

He let out a contented sigh.

“Now that’s what I like to hear,” said Ray, pleased.

The sound of Ray’s voice jolted Rip back to reality bringing him back to himself and to recent events. The peacefulness he’d begun to feel left and the feeling of guilt returned as he recalled his latest failure as captain. How the hell did he always manage to put his foot in it? He couldn’t believe Ray had come back, that he was being so nice after what Rip had done.

“Uh, Rip?” Ray asked, uncertainly, the massage stopping as he lifted his hands from Rip’s shoulders. “Everything okay? Just asking because all that tension I’ve been trying to work out of your shoulders kind of jumped up a notch. Did I do something wrong?”

Rip shook his head and let out another sigh, this one a sigh of dejection rather than contentment. “I was just wondering why you were doing this,” he said, “when I clearly don’t deserve your kindness.”

“Who says you don’t?” Ray protested.

Rip let out a disbelieving snort. “Well among other things, I did rather rudely yell at you not so long ago. Something you did nothing to deserve in any way.”

“Yeah, well, you do that sometimes,” Ray said with a shrug. “You kind of have this tendency to lose your temper and yell at us when you’re having a bad day but that’s okay. Sometimes Jax plays his music too loud and leaves his tools out for us to trip over, and sometimes Martin snaps at us when he hasn’t had his morning coffee yet or is feeling scared, and sometimes Sara sneaks up on us or pulls out a knife when she’s startled, and sometimes Mick steals our food and threatens to set us on fire, and sometimes I don’t know when to shut up and leave things alone. That what families do. They irritate the hell out of each other and drive one another insane but it doesn’t mean they stop caring. The good stuff more than makes up for the bad.”

When had this team become a family, Rip wondered. He had to admit there was something rather appealing about the idea. Was he ready for a new family? Did he deserve one?

“I really am sorry for what I said,” he told Ray.

“I know,” Ray replied. “I’m sorry too. I should have realized you weren’t feeling well sooner. I’m not always good at noticing these things. Fortunately this time, I had a little help from Gideon.”

A smile traced its way across Rip’s lips. Typical Gideon, always watching out for them.

“Though maybe next time,” said Ray as he placed his hands on Rip’s shoulders and resumed the massage, “you could let me know you’re not feeling so great before you start yelling at me.”

Rip gave a small chuckle feeling himself relax once more under Ray’s gentle touch. “I’ll do my best,” he replied.


	12. Once Upon a Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little Rip and Sara fluff.

Rip Hunter stood in the middle of his quarters and stared down at his bed.

After several minutes of this, he let out a long, weary sigh, plucked a book randomly from a shelf, and collapsed onto his couch.

Gideon was going to be annoyed with him, again.

He’d been working late in the library, researching, and as each member of the team had gone to bed, they’d come by to say goodnight and to remind him not to stay up too long. There’d been everything from Ray’s friendly ‘Don’t forget to get some sleep’ to Martin’s admonishing glare to Mick’s ‘Go to bed, you moron’, but it wasn’t until Gideon, rather passive aggressively in Rip’s opinion, had turned out all the lights in the library that he had finally gotten up and headed towards his quarters.

At least, she didn’t seem inclined to do it again. He flicked his eyes up to the ceiling but no comment was forthcoming. He was sure there would be one eventually. He could almost feel her electronic disapproval.

He had intended to go bed. He really had. He’d showered, brushed his teeth, put on his nightclothes, gone through all his usual bedtime routine, but when it came down to actually getting into bed, he’d realized he couldn’t do it. He simply couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face another restless night of tossing and turning, of sheets damp with sweat, of sudden awakenings and stifled cries, his heart beating frantically in his chest.

Rip rubbed his eyes and let his weary body sink deeper into the couch. Cracking open the leather cover of his book, he gave an amused snort upon realizing he’d unintentionally picked up an old copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It had been a favourite of his a long time ago. Right now though, he’d just as well read a cookbook if it could prove a good enough distraction to keep his tired mind from giving in to sleep.

Time passed in hazy drowsiness, the words on the pages blurring together in front of Rip. He wasn’t sure how long he had been reading but he was just finishing his 42nd fairy tale when the door to his quarters swooshed open. He looked up in surprise. Unannounced visitors to his quarters weren’t unusual. He didn’t keep his door locked, there was no point when most of the team were quite capable and quite willing to bypass it, and no one, except occasionally Martin, bothered to knock, but visitors at this hour were fairly rare.

It was Sara. She stood in the doorway wearing light grey pyjama pants and a hoody. She seemed tired and pale, random strands of hair escaping her blond ponytail. Her eyes did a quick scan of the room, and as soon as they alighted on Rip, she started heading towards him.

“Sara,” said Rip, closing his book and sitting up. “Is something wrong?”

She didn’t answer. She simply came over and sat down on couch beside him. In a single smooth motion, her legs swung up to curl beneath her and her upper body tilted to the side until her head was resting against his shoulder.

Wide-eyed, Rip stared down at the person now using him as a pillow. “Uh, Sara?”

“Shut up,” she replied and snuggled closer to him.

Rip continued to stare, his body tense and frozen. It felt like a wild leopard had just curled up next to him and one wrong move might lead to it clawing his eyes out.

“As much as I enjoy your company,” he began hesitantly, “this isn’t exactly…”

“Shut up,” Sara said again, not looking at him. “This isn't a thing, alright? I just couldn’t sleep and Gideon said you were still awake.”

Of course, Gideon had, thought Rip. He was sure she’d been more than happy to volunteer that information.

“Don’t make a big deal about it,” Sara continued. “Pretend it’s not even happening.”

“Right,” said Rip. “I’ll just go back to reading my book, shall I?”

“You do that.”

It was hard to look away but Rip did so. He reopened his book and tried to read while doing his best to ignore the warm weight pressed against his side, not an easy task.

After a few minutes, Sara said quietly in a soft tone he didn’t think he’d ever heard her use before, “Read me a story.”

Rip glanced back over at her noticing once more how tired and pale she looked, the slight tension in her jawline, the slight redness around her eyes. His forehead creased with concern. He didn’t mean to but he forgot sometimes that all of the team had their own traumas to deal with just like him, that they too had scars and nightmares to keep them up at night.

Carefully, Rip shifted around, manoeuvring until Sara’s head was resting against his chest instead of his shoulder and his arm was gently wrapped around her.

Sara didn’t say anything about the change in position but he could feel her chest move out and in as she let out a deep sigh.

It felt good. Rip would never admit it to anyone but it felt good to hold another human being again, to feel that connection, to feel their warmth and the rise and fall of their chest as they breathed. It had been much too long.

For the first time since Sara had entered, Rip let himself relax sinking into the embrace.

“Read,” Sara insisted once again with a little more of her usual forcefulness.

A fond smile playing around his lips, Rip cleared his throat and began.

“Once upon a time…”


	13. The Gift of Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little Rip & Kendra friendship

“I’ll take you.”

“Sorry, what?” said Rip, distractedly, turning to look at Kendra and returning his focus from the rooftop of the building across the street to the one they were currently crouched upon.

“I’ll take you,” Kendra repeated. “It’s the only way.” She gestured to the building Rip had been staring at. “We need to get over there as quickly and quietly as possible and the best way to do that is for me to take you.”

“Oh, uh…” Rip said balking somewhat at her suggestion, but even as he did so, a small voice at the back of his mind told him she was right. Going through the roof was their safest bet and her flying him over was the only way to get there. If they waited for the others to arrive, their lead on Savage might get away.

Instead of being offended by his reaction, Kendra seemed to find it amusing. She raised her eyebrows and gave him a wry smile. “Afraid of heights?” she asked teasingly. “Or is it flying?”

Rip scowled back at her. “It’s hardly likely I’d be afraid of flying considering I’ve been flying a timeship for over a decade.”

“Yeah, well, there’s flying and there’s _flying_ ,” Kendra said, pointedly, still giving him that wry smile. Standing up, she took a step back and unfurled her wings. “Come on,” she said, offering her hand. “I won’t drop you. I promise. I’m a lot stronger than I look.”

When Rip stared at her hand instead of taking it, she added, “Do you trust me?”

To Rip’s shame, he was unable to answer straight away. He hesitated still staring at her hand.

The thing was he wanted to trust her. He really did, and he should trust her. She was a member of his team and a team couldn’t be a team if they didn’t trust one another. But trust had never come easy to Rip. Blame it on an odd and rather turbulent childhood. Even before Savage, he’d been able to count the people he truly trusted on a single hand, Miranda, Gideon, his mother, Jonah, and Druce, and now, one of those people was dead and another had betrayed him in the worst possible way which really did nothing to help.

Rip gazed up at Kendra who continued to stand there patiently with her hand outstretched, a complete lack of judgment in her eyes. She seemed to trust him. She trusted him even when he’d given her little reason to.

Maybe it was time he returned the favour.

Maybe it was time for a little leap of faith.

“I trust you,” he said and took her hand.

Smiling, Kendra pulled him to his feet. “I promise to go easy on you. No double loop-de-loops, only singles.”

“Very funny,” Rip replied making a conscious effort not to look over the edge of roof to see how far down the ground was. He really wasn’t afraid of heights, not usually.

Coming up behind him, Kendra wove her arms under his and wrapped them tightly around his chest. “Ready?”

Rip took a deep breath and nodded. “Ready.”

Kendra bent her knees, and then with a slight jump and a flap of her wings, she launched up into the air.

To Rip it was less like being yanked upward and more like having the ground suddenly drop out from under him, his stomach quickly following suit. His heart beat frantically in his chest as he instinctively felt a sense of panic, but as Kendra began to soar across the gap between the two buildings, that thrill of fear became one of excitement and delight.

It was incredible. He felt almost weightless in Kendra’s arms as she glided along following a graceful arc, the air whipping past them, the ground streaming by below.

Kendra was right. There was flying and there was _flying_.

The city skyline spread out before them and Rip couldn’t help wanting to keep soaring right out to the horizon.

But their flight was soon over. Before he knew it, Kendra had landed them on the other roof and was releasing her grip.

Rip stumbled a bit as he got his feet back under him. “That was…” he began but found himself at a loss for words. All he could do was gaze at Kendra in wonder.

Kendra grinned back. “I know,” she said. “It’s pretty much the only thing about this whole mess with Savage that I truly love. It almost makes up for the whole doomed love affair, multiple reincarnation thing.”

“I…” Rip began again but then he cleared his throat and pulled himself together managing with some effort to regain his usual dignity. “We should get going.”

“Right,” said Kendra but the sparkle of amusement remained in her eyes.

Rip quickly turned away trying his best to bring his mind back to the mission at hand, but he couldn’t help wondering if maybe Kendra would like to go flying with him later once the mission was over, purely as a training exercise of course. It might come in useful on future missions, and maybe, just maybe, he could find out what it was really like to fly all the way out to that horizon.


	14. Toe Tickles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. I wrote this a couple weeks ago and posted it on tumblr but I forgot to post it here.
> 
> Some Rip & Kendra & Sara friendship with bonus Snart

Rip gazed sullenly at Kendra. “Is this really necessary?”

“A bet’s a bet,” she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

“Yes but I never actually wanted to make the bet in the first place,” he replied with a scowl. “I was coerced.”

Kendra pursed her lips. “As I recall, no one forced you to take part.”

“It was the only way to get you lot to stop pestering me. People kept harassing me trying to get me to choose a side.”

“Aw, poor Rip,” Sara called out from the other side of the room, her voice filled with mock sympathy. “It’s not our fault you chose wrong.”

It was Sara’s room they were currently occupying, the four of them. Rip and Kendra were standing in the middle of the room while Sara and Snart were seated on the couch at the back, Snart reading a comic with his feet on Sara’s lap, Sara bent over his toes, an intent look of concentration on her face as she did something Rip would rather not think about.

“Don’t like losing, Hunter?” said Snart, not bothering to look up from his comic.

“No, actually,” said Rip. “Especially when it results in something like… this.” He waved his hand about somehow managing to convey quite a lot with a single gesture.

Kendra covered her mouth as she let out a giggle. It was echoed by Sara.

Rip glared at both of them. “The two of you are enjoying this far too much.”

“Sorry, Rip,” said Kendra, stifling another laugh. “But fair’s fair. You did lose the bet.”

“So pay up,” said Sara with a smirk.

“You know I am the captain here,” said Rip, not willing to give up just yet. “Technically, I am in charge. I should be exempt from this sort of thing.”

“Technically being the operative word,” Snart couldn’t help pointing out. “Give it up, Rip. There’s no wiggling your way out of this one.”

Feeling as if the whole world were against him, Rip let his shoulders slump and gave a long and weary sigh. “How was I supposed to know Sara could out eat everyone as well as out drink them?” he grumbled.

“You should know by now never bet against Sara Lance,” said Kendra. “Now, sit.” She pointed at the couch.

Rip gave another sigh and sat down beside Sara. Bending over, he began unlacing his boots muttering grumpily to himself as he did so. “Mick. Honestly, Mick, of all people. How the hell did she beat Mick in an eating contest?” One by one he removed the boots and then his socks until his feet were bare. “Happy now,” he said throwing out his hands.

“Ohh,” Kendra cooed. “What adorable toes! Look, Sara. Don’t you think he has the most adorable toes.”

Sara raised her eyebrows as she gazed down at them. “Very cute,” she said with exaggerated seriousness.

Rip felt his cheeks start to flush. “Could we just get this over with, please?”

“Hmm,” said Kendra, staring thoughtfully at his feet. “I think I’ve got just the thing.”

She rummaged through a basket on Sara’s dresser until she found what she was looking for. Grinning, she held it up to show Rip.

It was a bottle of nail polish, pale yellow nail polish.

“What do you think?”

Rip grimaced wondering for the thousandth time how the team kept getting him into these situations. “Are there any other options?”

Kendra gave him a disappointed look.

“It’s too light,” said Sara, offering her opinion. “He needs something bright and daring.”

Bright and daring colours were definitely not something Rip thought he needed more of in his life but Kendra nodded in agreement and began rummaging through the basket once more.

While she was doing so, Rip scanned the room trying to think of a way out. His eyes alighted on Snart, or more correctly on Snart’s toes. Thanks to Sara, the toenails on Snart’s left foot were a brilliant shade of violet and his right foot would soon match.

“You seem to be taking this very calmly, Mr. Snart,” Rip said to him.

Snart’s eyes met Rip’s over the pages of his comic book. “You honestly think this is the first time I’ve had my nails done?” the thief replied, raising his eyebrows. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have a younger sister, a very demanding younger sister.”

Recalling everything he’d heard about Lisa Snart, Rip winced in sympathy.

“This is nothing,” Snart said and went back to his reading.

“I’ve got it!” Kendra exclaimed pulling out a new bottle. “How about this?”

“That’s perfect,” said Sara.

Rip gazed at the bottle uncertainly. “It’s red.”

“Yup,” said Kendra, nodding.

“Isn’t that a little cliché?” he pointed out.

“But this is a sparkly red.” Kendra tapped her finger against the bottle. “See. It’s got glitter in it.”

Rip made a face. “I just remembered. There’s something very important I meant to help Jax with.” He attempted to sit up but was forced back down by both Sara and Kendra.

“Jax is busy lazing in front of the TV,” said Kendra. “He’s the smart one, remember?”

“Right.” Rip let out a huff. “How could I forgot. He bet on Sara so he’s to be spared this humiliation unlike the rest of us. I assume you’ll deal with Mick and Martin too when you get the chance.”

“Oh, we’ll track Martin down soon enough,” said Sara. “But we’re waiting until Mick’s… uh… feeling a bit better before we do him.”

“Apparently, he’s not quite the bottomless pit he thought he was,” Kendra said with a wry smile. She held up the nail polish once more. “So, are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?” said Rip, scowling.

“Why are you making such a fuss about this?” asked Kendra. “You do know there’s nothing wrong with a guy wearing nail polish, don’t you?” she added with a raised eyebrow.

Rip rolled his eyes. “Yes, I was aware of that.”

“Ray really liked what I did with his toes.”

“I know.”

“He even had me do his fingers.”

Rip flung his hands into the air in exasperation. “And they look very fetching,” he said. “Blue is most certainly his colour but that’s not the problem.”

“Then what is the problem?” Kendra asked.

“It’s… I…” Rip let his hands fall to his side and shook his head. “Never mind. It’s nothing. Let’s just get this over with.”

The look on Kendra’s face showed she clearly didn’t believe him but she pulled a chair over and sat down in front of him. “Alright. Hand them over,” she said, patting her knee.

Reluctantly, Rip lifted his right foot and placed it on her leg.

Kendra gave his toes a quick examination, and then grabbed a cloth and began cleaning the nails. While she was doing so, the cloth lightly brushed the side of Rip’s foot sending an electical jolt along the nerves of his entire leg and causing it to jerk involuntarily.

“Stay still,” Kendra admonished.

Rip gave a huff of annoyance but nodded. Kendra continued and it wasn’t long before a casual brush of the cloth sent another jolt through Rip. He bit his lip and managed, through a great deal of effort, to stay still. Another brush however and a third jolt made his breath hitch and his foot twitch once more.

Kendra narrowed her eyes at him.

“What?” Rip asked, feigning nonchalance, his eyes not quite meeting hers.

Still staring at him, Kendra took ahold of his foot and slowly and deliberately ran a finger along the underside.

Rip’s whole body jerked, and though he clenched his hands and grit his teeth, it wasn’t enough to stop the incredibly embarrassing squeak that emerged from him.

Everyone stared at him in amazement, even Snart looked up from his comic to gaze wide-eyed at Rip.

The shade Rip’s face turned came close to matching Kendra’s sparkly nail polish.

A mischievous grin slowly spread across Kendra’s face. “Hey, Sara,” she said. “Did you know Rip’s feet are ticklish?”

“Oh, yeah?” said Sara with an equally mischievous grin. “Let me see.” She extracted herself from Snart and began reaching for Rip’s foot.

“Don’t you dare!” Rip exclaimed, quickly retrieving his right foot from Kendra and pulling it, along with his left, close to his body.

Sara pouted. “Oh, come on, Rip. I promise I’ll be gentle.” She attempted to look innocent but it was ruined by the quirking of her lips as she tried not to laugh.

Rip drew his knees to his chest bringing his feet in even closer and glowered at her. “If you even think of trying to‒–”

“You know,” said Kendra, interrupting him, “I wonder if any other parts of Rip are ticklish.”

Sara raised her eyebrows. “Maybe we should find out.”

They gazed at each other grinning wickedly.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” said Rip, shaking his head, eyes widening.

The two women turned their gazes on him.

Rip leapt up from the couch and attempted to bolt for the exit. He only made it a couple steps though before they tackled him bringing him to the ground and pinning him there.

“Just consider this a little experiment,” said Kendra as they held him down.

Sara nodded in agreement. “Research into potential weak spots.”

“I’m your captain,” Rip sputtered. “You can’t‒–“

But they were on him before he could finish, wiggling fingers running along his feet and under his shirt. Rip tried to squirm out of their way but they clearly had no intention of letting him go. His body spasmed as he felt their fingers brush his skin and he began letting out involuntary squeaking noises which soon morphed into full-throated laughter.

“I’m… going to,” said Rip, gasping for air between laughs, “going to throw… the both of you… in the brig.”

This only seemed to encourage them. Sara and Kendra tickled him even more, their giggles joining his.

“S… Sn… Snart,” Rip called out, “some as… assistance, p… please?”

Snart was watching from the couch with a smirk on his face, obviously enjoying the show. “Sorry, Rip,” he said, shaking his head. “But you wouldn’t want me to ruin Sara’s paint job, would you?” He waved his violet toes at him.

Rip would have glowered back but he was too busy rolling around on the floor unable to escape the women’s tickling fingers as the rare, joyous sound of his laughter echoed throughout the ship.


	15. Every Man Has His Price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little Rip & Sara friendship with some bonus Gideon.

“You are going to be joining us for movie night,” Sara declared as she strode into Rip’s office.

“I am?” said Rip from his desk, not bothering to look up from the papers he was studying. “That’s news to me.”

“Oh, you are,” said Sara, eyebrows raised pointedly, arms folded across her chest. “You are going to squish onto that couch between Ray and me, and stay there without complaint throughout the entire movie marathon while eating snacks and drinking beer.”

Letting out a sigh, Rip raised his head to gaze tiredly at Sara. “As much as I’d"—he cleared his throat—"love to. I do have rather important work to do.” He gestured at the papers he’d been studying. “I’ve almost managed to pinpoint the source of this time aberration. I just need to—”

Sara reached over and pushed the papers off his desk. They flew across the room.

Rip gazed at the scattered pages. “Was that really necessary?”

Pursing her lips, Sara pretended to muse on the subject a moment. “I’d say so.”

“I did actually need those,” said Rip, glaring crossly at her.

Sara rested her hands on his desk and leaned towards him. “What you need is a break.”

“I’ll take one when I’m done.” Getting to his feet, Rip moved away from her and began picking the paper up off the floor.

“Right,” said Sara, disbelievingly, as she watched him. “And how long have you been working on this?”

Rip suddenly realized he had no clue what time it was. “Uh, awhile.”

“Uh huh,” said Sara. “And the last time you ate was?”

“This morning sometime, I think.” Rip dumped the papers he’d retrieved back on his desk. “I have been rather busy. There’s a lot that needs doing.”

The expression on Sara’s face showed she was clearly unimpressed. “So you’re just going to work yourself to death?”

Rip waved a hand in the air. “You’re exaggerating. I may have lost track of time somewhat but it hasn’t been that long.”

Gideon apparently thought this was a great time to interject. “You have been working non-stop for 15 hours 23 minutes and 17 seconds,” the A.I. provided helpfully.

Sara glared reproachfully at Rip.

Rip rolled his eyes. “Thank you, Gideon.”

“Would you also like information on when you last ate?” Gideon asked.

“No,” said Rip.

“Yes,” said Sara.

“Your last meal was toast and scrambled eggs at 0630 this morning,” said Gideon, “though you did also consume a nutrient drink approximately 8 hours ago.”

“Thank you, Gideon,” said Sara, smiling smugly, her offer of gratitude a lot more sincere than Rip’s.

“Gideon, you’re supposed to be on my side,” Rip grumbled.

“I am,” the A.I. replied, “which is why your well-being is my number one priority.”

Rip rubbed a hand across his face. “I think you’ve been a bad influence on her,” he said to Sara.

“Oh, I think Gideon was pretty awesome even before I got here,” Sara said with a smirk.

“Thank you, Miss Lance,” said Gideon. “Perhaps it would be best to follow her suggestion, Captain. Scans show that your bodily functions are below the ideal range.”

Feeling ganged up on, Rip let out a groan. “As much as I appreciate your concern, I would just like to remind the two of you that this is vital work I’m trying to accomplish. I don’t have time for this ‘movie night’ thing.”

Sara took a step towards him, managing to look quite intimidating despite her small stature. “I could always make you join us.”

Rip gave her a look. “Miss Lance, we both know it would be extremely unlikely that I could take you in a fair fight.” He too took a step forward until they were only inches apart. “But we also know you would never lift a finger to hurt a friend.”

Sara scowled.

“So if you would leave me in peace to finish my work, I would greatly appreciate it,” said Rip. “I promise I will take a break and eat something later.” Returning to his desk, he sat down and began reorganizing his papers.

“You are going to movie night,” Sara said, still undeterred.

“Clearly, not,” said Rip, retrieving his pen and making a quick note on a piece of scrap paper.

Sara shook her head. “I didn’t want to do this but you’ve left me no choice.” She leaned closer and her tone grew darker. “I know your weakness, Hunter,” she said. “Jax told me all about it, and unlike him, I’m not afraid to use it.”

“I’m sorry?” Confused, Rip gazed at her questioningly but all she did was smile at him, a large sinister smile filled with mischief, and turn to leave.

Rip watched as she strode out of the office and off the bridge. “Should I be worried, Gideon?”

“You did just anger one of the most powerful members of the League of Assassins,” Gideon pointed out.

“Right,” said Rip, grimacing. He wondered if it might not be a good idea to open the hidden compartment below his office and try to hide, but before he could, Sara returned holding something in her hands.

It was a glass bowl and it was full of jelly beans.

That was probably the last thing Rip had expected. “What…?”

“Did I forget to mention our snack for tonight?” Sara said, holding the bowl out to him.

“Um, that’s nice,” said Rip, eyes fixed on the jelly beans, suddenly acutely aware of how long it had been since he’d last eaten. Shaking his head, he managed to snap himself out of it and look away. “But I fail to see what that has to do with anything.”

“Oh, I just thought you’d like to know,” Sara said, innocently. “I’m mean we’ve got a whole bowlful, a really big bowl completely full of sweet, tasty jelly beans.” She took a step forward bringing the bowl even closer to him and waving it under his nose.

The multi-coloured candy gleamed enticingly at Rip. He swallowed as his mouth began to water.

“Well, since you brought them, I suppose I could eat a couple,” he said, reaching a hand out towards the bowl.

Sara immediately snatched the bowl back cradling it against her chest. “Uh uh, these snacks are for movie watchers only.”

Rip scowled at her. “If you think some colourful confectionery is going to convince me to go to your little movie night, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Raising her eyebrows, Sara gave him a look. “Come on, Rip. Jax told me these are your favourites and everyone knows what a sweet tooth you have.”

“You do realize with the food fabricator I can have jelly beans anytime I want?” Rip countered.

“Yes,” Sara replied, “but these aren’t fabricated jelly beans. These are real Jelly Belly jelly beans picked up last time we visited 2017 and you know how much better they are than that fabricated junk.”

Rip hated to admit it but she was right. The fabricator had never been able to make jelly beans exactly the way he wanted. They never tasted quite right. Biting his lip, he stared at the bowl once more.

“I mean if you don’t want them I’m sure the rest of the guys will be happy to eat them,” Sara said, casually. “It seems a shame though for all your favourite food to be snatched up without you getting any. Mick alone will probably finish them off within a few minutes but if you don’t want to come to movie night…”

“Alright!” Rip cried. “Alright. I’ll come.” He let out a huff. “You know you can be quite evil on occassion.”

“I know,” Sara said with a smirk and tossed a few of the jelly beans into her mouth.

Rip gave a sigh abandoning the work on his desk as he gave in to the inevitable. “So what movies are we watching?”

“We’re having a Gene Wilder marathon starting with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

“Of course,” said Rip, wryly. “I’d better not regret this.”

“Trust me, you won’t,” said Sara, offering him the bowl once more.

Rip took a blue jelly bean and popped it into his mouth. “I’m not usually so easily bought, you know.”

Cradling the bowl in one arm, Sara wrapped her other arm around one of his. “Of course not,” she placated him patronizingly as she escorted him out of the office and off to movie night.


	16. A Feline Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rip + Team fluffy crack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually add images to my fics but I found the perfect one for this and I couldn't resist.

When Jax and Ray strode on to the bridge several minutes late for the team’s post-mission debriefing, they were greeted by two surprises.

The first was the conspicuous absence of their captain. Considering it was Rip who insisted on having these debriefings in the first place and who lectured anyone and everyone that was late or failed to attend, this was very odd. The rest of the team were all there however, Martin looking rather worried, Sara looking rather annoyed, and Mick looking, rather disturbingly, amused.

The second surprise to greet them as they entered the bridge, and the more startling of the two, was an unexpected new arrival seated on the console in the middle of the room.

Eyebrows lifted as high as they could go, Jax said, “Uh, guys. What’s a cat doing in here?”

“Oh, hey, how cute,” said Ray in turn. “Can I pet him?”

The cat, an orange tabby, turned to look at them, the end of its tail twitching.

Mick snorted. “Sure, go ahead,” he said with a smirk.

Grinning, Ray took a step forward.

Sara held up a hand halting Ray’s progress towards the cat. “That’s probably not a good idea.”

Ray’s shoulders slumped, his whole body sagging in disappointment.

Still gazing at the tabby, Jax shook his head. “You do know Rip’s going to blow a gasket when he finds out about this.”

“I can assure you, Jefferson,” said Martin, “the captain is well aware of the situation.”

“And he’s okay with it?” said Jax, disbelievingly.

The cat narrowed its eyes, its tail swishing back and forth.

Mick’s smirk grew larger. “I’d say he’s pretty pissed off.”

“Are you sure I can’t pet him?” asked Ray, taking another hopeful step towards the cat. “I’ve always been pretty good with cats. I mean I haven’t been able to spend that much time around them because of my allergies but the ones I’ve met always seemed to like me.”

Sara sighed rubbing a hand across her forehead. “Ray, that’s not a cat.”

More than a little perplexed, Ray said, “Um, I think I know a cat when I see one.”

“Yeah,” said Jax. “Fur, four paws, whiskers, a tail. That’s a cat.”

“Just look at it,” said Sara. “Really look.”

Still confused, the two obeyed gazing at the cat.

The cat gazed back at them, the disgruntled look of exasperation on its face all too familiar.

 

 

“Oh, my God,” said Ray, taking a step back. “That’s… that’s…”

“No way,” said Jax, his eyes widening. “Please tell me that’s not who I think it is.”

“That’s… that’s Rip!” Ray exclaimed, finally getting the words out.

“Yup,” said Sara, wearily nodding her head.

Ray stared at the cat in astonishment. “But how….?”

Feeling an unexpected flare of guilt, Jax narrowed his eyes at Martin. “Grey?”

The professor winced slightly. “Yes?” he said, trying and failing to look innocent.

Jax rolled his eyes. “What did you do this time?”

“What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”

Jax gave him a pointed look.

“I, uh…” Martin swallowed, his guilt now obvious to even those without a psychic connection to him. “Well, you recall how the time pirate we took care of had that large collection of stolen items?”

“Yeah,” said Jax, circling his hand in the air as he prompted Martin to continue. “And?”

“Well,” Martin continued, reluctantly, “the captain and I were going through them trying to determine if any of them needed returning to their proper places. The time pirate had quite a few interesting items in that collection, items from all across the timeline, and one of them happened to be a bronze statue of a cat. I was merely examining it. There was no way I could have possibly known it was a mystical artifact or that my examinations would inadvertently… uh… activate it.”

“You turned Rip into a cat?” Ray said in disbelief.

“Accidentally,” insisted Martin.

Sara held up her hands. “Placing blame isn’t going to help us,” she said. “What we need to decide is what to do next.”

“Buy a litter box?” Mick suggested.

Sara gave him a look.

“What?” said Mick with a shrug. “I like him better this way.” He took a step towards Rip, arm outstretched reaching to scratch the cat under the chin. “Who’s a cute kitty witty.”

Eyes narrowing even further, the cat hunched its shoulders and let out a low growl, its tail beating against the console.

Mick wisely backed off though the smirk never left his face.

“So, that’s really Rip in there?” said Jax, gazing curiously at the cat. “I mean that’s his mind in that body and he actually knows what’s going on.”

“Based on his reaction to Mick, I’d say yes,” said Sara.

“Mmrrow,” said the cat, a noise part yowl and part growl.

Ray leaned closer to the cat. “I wonder what he’s trying to tell us.”

“He said ‘Will you please stop this pointless prattling and concentrate on figuring out a way to turn me back,’” said Gideon, the A.I.’s voice making them all gaze up at the ceiling in surprise.

“You speak cat?” said Martin, incredulously.

“I do not,” said Gideon.

Ray frowned. “Then how do you know what he said?”

“He’s my captain,” was Gideon’s only response.

Sara raised her eyebrows. “Okayyyy,” she said. “Putting that aside for now, what do you think we should do?” she asked addressing Rip.

“Mrow,” said the cat.

“Perhaps you could start by researching the statue that caused this mess in the first place,” Gideon translated for him.

“You think it might be able to turn you back?” asked Martin.

“Yowl!” Rip cried.

“How the hell should I know I’m a bloody cat,” said Gideon, her pleasant tone a complete contrast to the words she was speaking.

“Boy,” said Jax. “Rip sure is one grumpy cat.”

“Oh, Grumpy Cat,” said Ray, grinning, a dopey look in his eyes.

“Now that’s a cat,” said Mick, waving a finger in the air.

“Guys,” said Sara in exasperation, trying to bring their attention back to the matter at hand. “Rip’s right. We need to focus on fixing this. Ray, Martin, why don’t you start researching the statue. If that doesn’t work, I know a guy back in 2016 who might be able to help out.”

“Meowl,” said Rip, forlornly.

“Please tell me you’re not talking about John Constantine,” Gideon provided.

Sara put her hands on her hips. “Yes, John Constantine. Is that going to be a problem?”

The cat just glared at her.

“Don’t give me that look,” Sara said, sternly. “If it’s his help you need, then it’s his help we’re going to get. Do you want to stay a cat forever?”

Rip hung his head, looking completely miserable.

Sara’s expression softened. Stepping forward, she reached out and plucked the dejected cat off the console.

Rip’s eyes went wide with panic as his legs dangled comically in the air. When Sara brought him close to her chest and cradled him in her arms, he settled down somewhat though he still looked thoroughly offended by her actions.

Smiling, Sara lightly stroked the cat’s head and scratched him behind the ears. “Don’t worry, Rip. I’m sure we’ll have you back to normal in no time.”

“No fair,” said Ray, pouting. “How come you get to pet him?”

Cocking her head to the side, Sara gave him a smug smirk.

The sound of an electronic shutter interrupted them and everyone turned towards the source.

Jax, his phone still pointed at Sara and Rip, shrugged. “You know Kendra’s always complaining we don’t send her enough pictures.”

“That’s true,” agreed Martin. “And this is unprecedented. It would be wise to uh… document the phenomenon while we still have the chance.”

“Don’t forget to send me copies, kid,” said Mick.

Ray quickly added, “And me.”

From Sara’s arms, Rip the cat glared at them letting out another low growl.

“Oh, shush,” said Sara and she started scratching him behind the ears once more.

Rip managed to maintain his angry glare for another second or two but it soon fell away, his eyes closing as the tension left him and his body unwillingly melted under Sara’s gentle touch.

Grinning, Jax took several more photos while very quietly Rip began to purr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear fellow Rip fans: I've started a thing or at least I'm trying to start a thing. Because it can be hard to find Rip-centric fanfics on AO3, from now on I'm tagging all my fics which have Rip as a central character or one of the central characters as 'RipFic' and I'm hoping other writers will join me in doing the same. I've already somehow managed to convince the lovely IncendiaGlacies and Drogna to join me. So if you write or have already written a fic where Rip plays a significant role and features a lot in the story, please tag your fic as 'RipFic'. If you're just a reader, feel free to use the tag to find more amazing fanfics about Rip!


	17. Lost: One Cat. Answers to Rip.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of what looks to be multiple sequels to the last Random Scene with cat!Rip once again though actually featuring surprisingly little Rip and quite a lot of Jax.

Jax entered the Waverider’s library just in time to see Professor Stein throw a large book across the room. The leather-bound tome hit the screen on the opposite wall with a loud thud before tumbling to the ground.

“You know that book was an antique and probably worth quite a bit of money,” Jax said, raising his eyebrows.

Looking up from the desk where he sat, Stein glowered at him. “Be that as it may, I currently have rather more pressing concerns than the book’s resale value,” he snapped; then he sighed and ran a hand through his white hair. “I’m sorry, Jefferson. I afraid I am somewhat frustrated at the moment.”

“That’s an understatement. I could feel your frustration all the way down in the engine room.” Jax walked up to the desk and leaned against it gazing at the scattered notes and books which covered the surface. “I take it the search for a cure to Rip’s little feline problem isn’t going so well.”

“To put it mildly,” Martin said, wryly. “The statue is clearly ancient Egyptian, from around 300 BC if I could hazard a guess, and was most likely dedicated to the cat goddess Bastet but other than that I know nothing. I’m a scientist. I barely even believe in magic. I know nothing about ancient Egyptian spellwork or any other spellwork for that matter. Merlin, I most certainly am not.”

“You’re not even Harry Potter,” Jax said with a smirk.

Martin frowned. “Who?”

Jax gave him a disbelieving look. “Are you seriously saying you don’t know…?” He stopped and shook his head. “You know what never mind.”

“The point is," Martin continued, "I am way out of my depths.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Jax, placing a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “This is why Sara’s trying to track down an expert, remember? Even if we did find a spell to turn Rip back, if any of us tried to use it, we’d probably end up turning the rest of us into cats too.”

Martin nodded. “That is a distinct possibility."

Glancing around the room, Jax added, “Where’s Rip anyway? I thought he was going to be helping you.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately it’s rather difficult to do research when you can’t even turn the page in a book,” Martin said as he gazed back down at his scribbled notes. “I’ve left him in the care of Dr. Palmer and Mr. Rory.”

Jax stared at him. “You left Rip with Ray and Mick?”

Martin waved his hand dismissively. “I know, even as a cat, Captain Hunter can probably take care of himself but I was concerned about there being more possible side effects from the spell so I thought it best someone keep an eye on him.”

“Let me just get this clear,” said Jax, leaning closer and giving Martin a pointed look. “You left Rip with Ray and Mick?”

Martin’s eyes suddenly widened, realization dawning on his face. “Oh, my God. What have I done?” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “Maybe we should go check on them, uh, just to be on the safe side.”

Jax nodded. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea.”

With Gideon’s help, they were able to locate both Ray and Mick in the galley though when they entered they saw only one of them. There was also no sign of any cat.

“Ah, Mr. Rory,” said Martin upon seeing the former criminal.

“What’s up, Professor?” said Mick who was busy rummaging through the cupboards. As they watched, he opened the oven too and peered inside.

“Where’s–” Jax began, looking about the room, but he was interrupted by the sound of a loud thud followed by an even louder cry of pain.

They turned towards the location of the noise and saw Ray crawl out from under one of the tables grimacing and rubbing his head.

Ray’s eyes widened when he spotted Martin and Jax. “Oh. Hi, guys,” he said, a nervous smile appearing on his face.

“Raymond,” said Martin, gazing sternly at him. “I came to see how the Captain is faring. Where is he?”

“He’s, uh…” Ray got rather clumsily to his feet knocking over a chair in the process. “He’s… um…” He bent over and righted the chair before straightening up once more. “Well…”

“Ray,” said Jax, warningly.

“I’m not exactly sure,” Ray confessed.

“What do you mean you’re not sure?” Jax demanded. “Where’s Rip?”

“Haircut drove him away and now he can’t find him,” said Mick, who, having given up on his search, was now busy fabricating himself a beer.

Ray winced guiltily. “I didn’t mean to. I just thought he might be hungry. You know Rip’s pretty skinny even as a cat and I thought it would be best to make sure his new body got the proper nutrition so I fabricated what I thought would be the most appropriate.”

“Kibble,” Mick said as he grabbed his newly fabricated beer and popped the top off the bottle with his thumb. “The idiot tried to feed the Englishman kibble.”

Jax groaned and ran a hand across his face.

“Well, you’re the one who kept waving that shoelace at him trying to get him to play with it,” Ray shot back at Mick.

Taking a sip of his beer, Mick shrugged unapologetically. “At least, I didn’t keep trying to pet him.”

“He likes being petted,” Ray protested.

“Not when you sneeze all over him.”

“I can’t help my allergies.”

“Gentlemen,” said Martin, holding up a hand. “This is not helping. It’s imperative we find the captain as soon as possible. Do you have any idea where he might be?”

Ray looked downcast. “I’ve got no clue. He could be hiding anywhere. He’s even small enough to fit inside some of the ship’s duct system now.

Jax shook his head. “You’d better hope Sara doesn’t find out about this.”

With sitcom level timing, Sara's voice called out from the galley’s entrance. “Find out about what?”

They turned to see her standing in the doorway, hands on her hips as she gazed expectantly at them.

Ray paled looking like he would very much like to bolt out the door. “Hey, Sara,” he said, his strangled voice almost a whole octave higher than normal. “Um, we seem to have a bit of a problem.”

Sara’s intense gaze turned on him. “What sort of problem?”

Ray visibly swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

Jax decided to put him out of his misery. “Ray and Mick managed to piss off Rip so he took off and now we can’t find him.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised,” she said. “You’re lucky he didn’t decide to try his new claws out on you. I suppose we’ll just have to wait until he calms down and comes out of hiding.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Martin said, gesturing agitatedly. “I’ve been reading up on these sort of spells and it’s possible his condition might degenerate even further.”

“Meaning what?” asked Sara, frowning.

“Meaning,” Martin continued, “that though right now we are dealing with Rip’s mind and memories inside a cat’s body, he may slowly start to become more and more like a cat, to forget who he is or that he was ever human.”

“So,” Sara said, slowly, “this might not actually be Rip off in a huff somewhere but an actual scared cat hiding who knows where inside the ship.”

“Exactly,” Martin replied, glumly.

Sara closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose as she muttered several curses under her breath. “Fine,” she said when she was done. “We need to search the ship top to bottom and find our cat, I mean our captain.”

“Maybe Gideon knows,” suggested Ray, his face lighting up with hope.

Everyone gazed expectantly up at the ceiling.

After a moment’s pause, the A.I. said, “I’m afraid my scanners were not calibrated to locate feline life signs.”

There were several groans in response.

Jax narrowed his eyes thoughtfully but made no comment.

“So we do this the hard way,” said Sara. “Everyone spread out and start searching.”

The team left with various amounts of enthusiasm, Mick only after fabricating himself a second beer.

On his way out, Ray began calling, “Here, Rip! Here, kitty kitty kitty!”

Sara slapped his arm. “Not helping.”

“Honestly, Raymond, do you really think that’s wise?” said Martin.

“Couldn’t hurt,” said Mick. “Here, kitty kitty kitty!”

None of them noticed as they ventured out into the rest of the ship that Jax stayed behind.

When he was sure the rest of the team was out of earshot, he gazed up at the ceiling and said, “Gideon?”

“Yes, Mr. Jackson?” Gideon replied.

“You know those sensors of yours are pretty damn good.”

“Why thank you, Mr. Jackson.”

Pursing his lips, Jax folded his arms over his chest. “They're so good that if you wanted to, I don’t know, recalibrate them to pick up feline life signs, which you could easily do yourself by the way, it should only take a second or two.”

There was no response from the A.I.

“Not that you’d need to,” he continued. “I’m sure you have ways of keeping track of Rip whatever shape he’s in and I’m pretty sure you’d never let him out of your sight especially when he happens to be a cat. You get what I’m trying to say here?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Gideon, defensively.

Unfolding his arms, Jax placed his hands on his hips. “Come on, Gideon. Cough it up. You know exactly where Rip is so where is he? And no more lying.”

“I am incapable of lying,” Gideon insisted.

Jax rolled his eyes. “Of course, not. You just avoid telling the truth when you don’t want to.”

“Are you suggesting I am keeping things from the crew?”

“I’m suggesting,” said Jax, eyebrows raised pointedly, “that you are an A.I. who is too smart for her own good and who is willing to do whatever it takes to protect her captain.”

Gideon seemed to relent somewhat and her voice lost some of its defensiveness. “I merely thought it would be in the captain’s best interest if he were not disturbed,” she explained. “The events of the day have been rather stressful and the actions of the others do not appear to be… very helpful.”

“That’s an understatement,” Jax said with a snort. “If I promise not to disturb him, will you tell me where he is?”

Gideon was silent once more.

“I just want to check to make sure he’s ok,” Jax insisted.

There was another pause before Gideon declared, “Very well.”

Under Gideon’s guidance, Jax made his way through the ship. He was surprised when she led him up to the bridge and into Rip’s parlour.

Standing by the entrance, he gazed around but saw no sign of the cat.

“Gideon, I don’t–” he began but the A.I. interrupted him.

“Please lower your volume, Mr. Jackson,” she said, her own voice much quieter than usual.

“Sorry,” said Jax, more softly, “but where’s–”

She told him.

Jax’s eye widened. “Seriously?”

Taking the chair from Rip’s deck, Jax placed it beside the large cupboard at the side of the room and stepped onto it. Stretching up onto his toes, he was just able to see the top.

There, nestled behind a pair of odd looking helmets, curled up into a stripey orange ball, was Rip contentedly sleeping away, his sides slowly rising and falling as he dozed.

“How the hell did you get up there?” Jax said, whispering so as not to disturb the sleeping cat.

As he watched, Rip shifted in his sleep placing a paw over his nose.

Jax bit his lip resisting the sudden urge to giggle. Quietly, he climbed down off the chair and put it away.

“The others are never going to believe this,” he said, grinning.

“Are you going to inform them of the captain’s whereabouts?” asked Gideon.

Echoing down the corridor from the depths of the ship came the sound of someone calling “Here, kitty kitty kitty.”

Jax smirked. “Eventually,” he said. “For now, I think you had the right idea. Let’s let sleeping cats lie. I’m sure Rip could use the rest.”

On top of the cupboard, Rip Hunter, once Time Master and now cat, let out a tiny snore.


	18. The Trouble with Catnip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another adventure for Cat!Rip. I was feeling a bit sorry for Ray and how I’ve been treating him so here is some Ray and Cat!Rip

Ray stood in the Waverider’s library staring up at a bookcase, his eyes large and pleading.

“Rip?” he called out hopefully.

He wrung his hands together, shifted from foot to foot, and tried again.

“Come on, Rip. Please?”

His lips twisted into what was meant to be a smile but came out more like a grimace.

“Pretty please?”

From the top shelf of the bookcase, beside a painted urn and several large volumes bound in leather, a long, stripey tail hung down. It swung violently back and forth.

“I said I was sorry,” Ray continued in the same pleading tone as before. “Please come down.”

There was no response other than the swishing of the tail.

“Look, I know you’re upset.”

The tail gave an extra hard swing as if in agreement.

“Which is understandable,” Ray conceded. “But how was I supposed to know you’d react that way to catnip?”

The tail vanished and an orange nose appeared over the side of the shelf accompanied by a pair of green eyes which glared at Ray.

Ray winced. “OK, so I admit listening to Mick was a bad idea.”

There was a low rumbling growl in reply.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure no one will remember what happened.”

The green eyes narrowed.

“Really,” insisted Ray, doing his best to sound reassuring, “it’ll be forgotten in no time. I mean who’s going to remember you rolling around in the stuff then tearing madly around the ship breaking all those… uh… and ending up in…” Ray trailed off as the cat turned his back on him so all Ray could see was the tail once more. “Rip?”

The tail swished at him.

Ray’s shoulders slumped. “Please, Rip, will you just come down. Sara will kill me if she finds out I drove you up there.”

The tail continued flicking back and forth.

“I promise if you come down, they’ll be no more cat food, no more cat toys, no more ‘cat got your tongue’ jokes.” Ray gazed at the tail searching for some sign his words were having an effect. “At least, from me. Mick’s a whole other story.”

The swishing slowed until only the end of the tail was twitching.

Taking that as encouragement, Ray grinned and said, “You come down and we can pretend all of this never happened. Everything can go back to normal. Well, sort of.”

The tail stopped moving completely but Rip made no move to come down off the bookcase.

Ray’s forehead creased as a thought suddenly occured to him. “You can get down, right? You’re not stuck up there.”

“Yowl!” With one final swish, the tail vanished onto the shelf leaving no indication there was even a cat up there.

“Um, Rip?” said Ray, uncertainly. “Was that a yes or a no? Gideon, a little help please.”

There was no response from the A.I.

“Gideon?”

The A.I. remained silent.

“Wonderful,” said Ray. “Gideon’s mad at me too.”

Ray gave one more forlorn look at the top of the bookcase.

“Rip?”

Silence was his only answer.

He hung his head. “Great job, Raymond.”

Turning around, he sank down onto the floor until he was sitting with his back against the bookcase.

“Really, great job,” he continued, grumbling to himself. “First you go and get all annoyingly obsessive about petting Rip because he’s a cat and you can’t stop thinking about how much you really like cats and were never allowed to have one as a kid because of your stupid allergies; then you manage to piss him off because you thought trying to feed him actual cat food was a good idea; and then you decide to give him catnip because Mick thought it would be funny and you thought it might help him relax and stop worrying about the whole being turned into a cat thing, and it, of course, ends up being the major fiasco to end all major fiascos. Now, one of your friends is so angry he won’t talk to you, another one, who happens to carry a fair number of knives about her person, will soon be equally pissed off, and you’ve even managed to anger the A.I. whom among others things controls the temperature of your shower and how much oxygen you breathe. Great, just great.”

He let out a long, world-weary sigh.

“Human disaster, thy name is Raymond Palmer.”

Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

“Should’ve stayed back in Star City. No, I should have stayed in that prison Darhk had me in. You can’t cause problems for people if you’re tiny and locked up in a glass box.”

He sniffed and rubbed his nose. Something soft brushed against his arm. He automatically reached down to stroke it.

“Maybe I should lock myself in my quarters for a month or two. Hopefully by then Sara will no longer want to kill me, Gideon will have stopped giving me cold showers, and someone will have managed to coax Rip down from…”

Ray trailed off as his brain finally caught up with what his body was doing. He turned and gazed wide-eyed at the cat he’d been stroking.

“Rip? When did you come down? For that matter, how did you get down?”

Making an odd chirping noise, the orange tabby placed his front paws on Ray’s leg and stretched out inquisitively towards him.

“Captain Hunter was wondering if you were alright,” Gideon translated for the cat having apparently relented on her silent treatment.

“Me?” Ray gave another sniff unsure whether to attribute it to his allergies or not. “Oh, I’m fine, fine. Fine and dandy, yup, that’s me.” He forced a grin onto his face but was only able to hold it a couple seconds before it fell away and his whole body sagged. “Ok, so I’m not fine. I guess I’ve been feeling a bit useless and pathetic recently. It seems like no matter what I do I keep screwing up and making things worse. Sometimes I don’t know why you bothered recruiting me in the first place.”

Grimacing, he gazed down at the floor. A soft head butted against his cheek. He looked back up and found himself gazing into Rip’s intense green eyes.

“Mrrow,” the cat said, emphatically.

Gideon immediately provided a translation. “You are not useless or pathetic. You are an important member of this team, and not just because of your suit and your intellectual prowess, but because of your heart, because of the light you bring when we are at our darkest. It doesn’t matter if you screw up. Everyone on this team screws up. They’re brilliant at it. What matters is that you care about the team and are always there for the us.”

“Wow.” Ray stared at Rip in wide-eyed amazement. “He really said all that.”

“I may have added a few things,” Gideon admitted, “but you can be certain he believes every word.”

A wide smile spread across Ray’s face. “Thanks, Rip. You too, Gideon. I really needed that.”

Reaching out, Ray began scratching Rip behind the ear.

Rip looked slightly offended at first as if convinced he was above such things but soon his eyes closed and he began to purr.

“I guess you must be feeling pretty useless too what with being a cat and all.”

Rip gave a meow in agreement.

“Don’t worry. We’ll soon have you back to your normal self.”

Moving on from scratching to stroking, Ray ran a hand along the soft fur of Rip’s back.

“I’ve got to say though,” he added, “you sure are a lot cuddlier as a cat.”

Ray was very glad Rip kept his claws retracted as the paw came up and swatted his nose.


	19. Love and War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here is a little, odd, cannon divergent thing where Sara does some flirting with a special surprise character and Rip seriously reconsiders his life choices.

Sara ran through the city ruins jumping over debris and dodging blaster fire as it zoomed by her. Spotting the crumbling remains of a wall, she dove for cover behind it, then crouched there as she caught her breath.

After a couple seconds, the blaster fire stopped and she cautiously stuck her head out to see what was going on. She just managed to catch a glimpse of the soldiers who’d been following her before they started shooting again. She quickly whipped her head back behind the wall.

God, she hated the twenty-fifth century.

Scrambling footsteps could be heard approaching and the blaster fire increased as another woman dived for cover behind a mound of broken wall a few feet from Sara. The woman sat there leaning her back against the wall and panting for breath.

“Having fun yet?” Sara asked, her lips twisting into a smirk.

A lock of dark hair had escaped the woman’s bun and she tucked it back behind her ear. “It is certainly proving to be an interesting diversion,” she said, still somewhat breathless.

Sara cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows. “Admit it. You’re enjoying yourself.”

“I’ll admit nothing of the sort,” the woman replied, primly, though the twinkle in her hazel eyes and the tiny curl at the corner of her lips gave her away.

A noise to their left caused both women’s heads to whip around. One of the soldiers had snuck up behind them. He raised his rifle and prepared to shoot but before he could a blast hit him square in the chest and he went down.

“Nice shot,” said Sara, impressed.

“Thank you,” the woman replied, keeping her revolver raised in case anymore soldiers tried to sneak up on them. “I may not be as good as some but I can hold my own.”

Sara gave a snort. “I’d call that more than holding your own. Seriously, is being a crack shot a Time Master thing?” Her eyebrows scrunched together as she frowned. “Wait. Would you be considered a Time Master or a Time Mistress?”

“Neither technically considering I resigned before I was even promoted to captain but the correct term is Time Master. And no, being a crack shot is not a Time Master thing though they did give us classes covering a wide variety of weaponry.”

The continuing blaster fire was starting to grow louder. Sara risked peeking out once again and saw the soldiers had indeed moved closer. She grimaced.

“You any good at those classes?” she asked.

“Oh, I was top of my class in practically everything,” the woman replied without a hint of modesty.

Sara let out a chuckle. “I bet that bugged the hell out of some people.”

A wide smile spread across the woman’s face. “You have no idea.”

Sara nodded her head in the direction of the soldiers. “Ready?”

Catching her drift, the woman nodded back and held her revolver at the ready.

Sara hefted one of her throwing knives. “On three. One, two…”

In unison, the two jumped out of hiding and took aim at the soldiers. Sara’s knives took down three while the other woman’s revolver took out three more but then the blaster fire grew too much and they were forced to duck back down.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” the woman observed.

“I was top of my classes too,” said Sara. “At least, my league of assassin ones.” A thought occured to her. “You ever study the bo staff?”

“I did,” said the woman. “In fact, it was a particular favourite of mine.”

“We should spar sometime.”

“I’d like that.”

Their eyes met as the two grinned at each other.

The blaster fire increased once more and it was accompanied by the sound of someone approaching rapidly.

The two women raised their weapons but it wasn’t a soldier who appeared. It was Captain Rip Hunter, his long, brown coat flapping behind him. He dived down and crouched beside the dark haired woman.

“About time you showed up,” said Sara. “The two of us have been holding off a whole army by ourselves.”

“And is that all you’ve been doing?” Rip asked, pointedly.

Sara blinked innocently at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Rip rolled his eyes skyward. “For God’s sake, Sara. How many times do I have to tell you? Stop flirting with my wife!”

Sara and Miranda were both forced to smother their giggles.

“Who said I was flirting?” Sara asked, trying and failing to resume a straight face.

Rip simply pointed at the comlink in his ear indicating he had heard everything. “If it wasn’t bad enough with Ray and Jax teaching Jonas the wonders of twenty-first century food and media, not to mention Rory and Snart’s ever corrupting influences, I have to put up with you constantly trying to seduce Miranda away from me. Why I agreed to keep you lot around I’ll never know.”

“There there, dear,” Miranda said and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You know if Sara and I were to ever”—she cleared her throat—“spar, you’d be perfectly welcome to join in.”

Rip’s face immediately turned a deep crimson.

Sara grinned at Miranda. “Have I ever told you how much I love it when you do that?”

“It’s a special talent of mine,” Miranda replied, smugly.

Doing his best to regain some sense of dignity, Rip said, “If the two of you are quite finished, maybe we could get back to the people who are currently trying to kill us.”

“Of course, dear,” said Miranda.

“Whatever you say,” said Sara.

Rip scowled. “I knew I should never have introduced the two of you.” He removed his revolver from its holster and gestured towards the soldiers who were still shooting at them. “Ladies first?”

Sara and Miranda exchanged grins, and then together the three charged into battle, the women leading the way.


	20. Broken Ships and Broken Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of Rip & Gideon with some Rip & Jax friendship written for Timeship Week 2017.

All in all the Waverider had seen better days.

There was currently no part of the ship that wasn’t warped, cracked, singed, or dented. Pieces of bulkhead littered the floor, broken cables hung loosely from the ceiling, fallen girders leaned against the walls. Everywhere exposed circuits sparked and fizzled.

I guess that’s one thing you can say about us Legends, Jax mused. When we crash a ship, we really crash a ship. Well, it’s not like they hadn’t had lots of practice.

The team had come through the crash pretty much okay, nothing more than a few bumps and bruises. The Waverider, not so much, but the damage was fixable. The whole team was chipping in on the repair efforts and Jax was in charge, which he had to admit was pretty cool. Hopefully, they’d be flying again in a few weeks. It was going to take a hell of a lot of hard work but it was all fixable, at least, almost all of it.

Jax grimaced as he entered the bridge.

Sitting on the floor, elbow deep in wires and circuits beneath the room’s main console, was Rip Hunter who currently looked not much better than his ship. His skin was pale, his clothes torn and blackened by grease and fire, and his normally tidy hair stuck up at odd angles.

“Come on, man,” said Jax, pleadingly. “You’ve been at this for three days now. You’ve got to take a break sometime.”

“I’ll take a break when I’ve finished, Mr. Jackson,” Rip replied, not looking up from his work.

Jax rolled his eyes. “Killing yourself isn’t going to help anybody.”

“You’re exaggerating. I’m perfectly fine.”

The tool Rip was using slipped slightly and hit something it shouldn’t have. Sparks shot out at him. He flinched and drew back his hand, sticking the singed fingers into his mouth.

“Sure, you are,” said Jax, eyebrows raised pointedly. “Tell me you’ve at least eaten something.”

“I had a nutrition bar a few hours ago,” Rip said with a wave of his hand.

“That’s it?”

Rip turned to give him a look. “Trust me, I’ve survived a lot longer on a lot less.”

The confession didn’t make Jax feel any better, nor did the appearance of Rip’s bloodshot eyes. It seemed as if more than just coffee was keeping the man going through all this.

Jax sighed. “Listen, I know how important this is to you, how important she is to you, and believe me, we love Gideon too.”

Rip’s jaw tightened and he looked away.

“But like you said,” Jax continued, “her main processor’s completely fried and her backup doesn’t look much better. We still don’t even know how bad the damage to her data might be but the chances of retrieving anything salvageable are pretty slim.”

“So you’re suggesting I give up?” Rip snapped at him.

Jax shook his head. “No way. We’re Legends and we never give up. I’m just saying…” He sighed again. “I’m just saying maybe you need to prepare yourself for the worst.”

Rip’s whole body seemed to sag. “I don’t know if I can,” he said, quietly. “I’ve already lost so much, almost all of my former life, Miranda and Jonas…” He drew a hand through his hair, the look on his face making Jax’s heart break in sympathy. “I can’t lose her too.”

“Okay,” Jax said, gently, nodding his head. “Okay. How 'bout you show me what you’re trying to do and I’ll see if I can help?”

Rip’s lips twisted into the tiniest of smiles. “I would greatly appreciate that, Mr. Jackson. I keep thinking I’ve almost got it but I can’t seem to get things stabilized enough to get her up and running.” He moved over so Jax could crouch down beside him and pointed into the mass of circuits and wires. “You see the problem.”

Jax’s brow furrowed as he gazed at the mess. It looked like Rip had scavenged various components from all over the ship and cobbled them together in an effort to replace what had been damaged. “Alright, I think I get what you’re trying to do,” he said, “but what about data corruption. I mean with all the damage there’s still a good chance a lot of the memory’s going to be messed up.”

“I’ve got a very powerful data recovery program designed specifically for A.I.’s and her internal debugging program should be able to take care of any major problems. If not…” Rip swallowed. “Well, we’ll deal with that if it comes up.”

Jax gazed at the patchwork job some more. It really was a mess, an ingenious mess but still a mess.

A glimmer of an idea appeared in his mind.

“Hey, what if I…” Instead of explaining, Jax picked up the tool Rip had been using and did a little rewiring, adapting this, resetting that. “What do you think?” he asked once he was done.

Rip stared at it wide-eyed. “My God, why didn’t I think of that?”

Jax grinned. “Well, maybe if you had gotten some sleep and some real food, you would have.”

Ignoring the jibe, Rip immediately went to work switching things on. Circuits lit up as power flowed through them. On one of the console’s screens, codding scrolled quickly by as the data recovery program got to work.

“If this works, we should know in a few minutes,” said Rip.

Those few minutes seemed like hours. Jax spent them watching Rip pace back and forth across the bridge, his head whipping around to check the screen every couple seconds.

Finally, there was a beep and the words ‘Data Recovery Complete’ flashed on the screen.

“Did it work?” Jax asked, nervously.

“I…” Rip swiped through the results of the recovery displayed on the screen. “I think so. I mean we should run a complete diagnostic to be sure but…” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Gideon?”

Jax gazed up too waiting for a response.

There was none. The bridge remained silent.

“Gideon?” Rip tried again.

There was still no reply.

Rip hung his head.

Jax put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, we can sill run that diagnostic. It might just be some stupid little error that’s easily fixed. I bet Ray would be willing to help out too. Maybe we can…”

“’ap… ap… t… tain?”

The sound was faint and staticky, and the stresses on the syllables were all wrong but the voice was unmistakable.

Hope lit Rip’s face. “Gideon?”

“C… Cap… tain.”

This time the sound was louder but it was still oddly distorted.

“Come on, Gideon,” Jax encouraged. “You can do it.”

“Cap… tain. Captain.” The voice finally resumed its normal tone and the blue holographic head flickered into being above the console. “My apologies, Captain Hunter. There was an error in my vocal subroutines but it has been fixed.”

“Thank God,” Rip breathed leaning against the console as if the relief he felt were enough to knock him over.

“You okay, Gideon?” asked Jax.

“There are a few minor errors in my programming which are in the process of being fixed and I still need to re-establish my connection with the rest of the ship, but yes, I believe you could say I am okay.” After a pause, Gideon added, “Is there something wrong with Captain Hunter?”

Rip, who was still leaning against the console, waved a hand in the air. “I’m… I’m fine, Gideon.”

“He was just worried about you,” Jax explained, unable to hide his smile.

“I see,” said Gideon. “Then I am sorry to have caused you distress, Captain.”

“It’s alright, Gideon,” Rip replied, running a hand along the edge of the console, “as long as you’re okay.”

“It seems appropriate though considering the many times you’ve done the same to me.”

A smile spread across Rip’s face and he let out a snort. “Fair enough.”

Jax chuckled. “Nice one, Gideon.”

“I see you’ve been careless with the ship once again,” the A.I. observed. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to reconnect with the ship’s systems so I can speed up the repair process.”

The holographic head disappeared. 

Rip let out a sigh of relief. “She’s okay,” he said, quietly to himself. “She’s okay.”

Jax clapped him on the back. “Yeah, she is,” he said, and then impulsively he wrapped his arms around Rip and pulled him into a hug.

Rip’s arms tightening around Jax in return while about them things flickered and hummed as the ship came back to life.


	21. Antisocial Comrades in Arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fun little Rip and Snart fic.

Footsteps echoed through the winding corridors of the Waverider, accompanied by the murmur of voices, both sounds growing louder. Rip’s head whipped around towards them before he quickened his pace in the opposite direction.

They were searching for him and they would find him soon if he wasn’t careful. He needed a place to hide, somewhere they wouldn’t think to look or better yet somewhere they didn’t even know about. 

The obvious spot came to him and he quickly changed direction.

The bridge was thankfully empty when he got there. He made a beeline for his study and knelt down near the entrance. The floor, decorated by the image of a compass rose in sepia tones, might seem innocent but the metal panels it was made from hid more than a few secrets. 

Rip began to pry one of the panels open. It had been awhile since he had used the secret hold but it should still be…

Eyes widening, he stopped holding the hatch open as he stared down into chamber, the light from the study streaming down to illuminate the small, dark space.

“What the hell are you doing there?” he demanded.

The face of Leonard Snart scowled up at him. “What do you think I’m doing?” he replied. “Find your own hiding spot.”

The footsteps were still getting louder, their owners clearly having decided to head for the bridge as well.

“Too late,” said Rip, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Budge up.”

Leonard reluctantly moved over and Rip clambered down into the hole accidentally elbowing him on the way.

“Watch it,” snapped Snart. “Geez, you’re even bonier than Sara.”

Rip shushed him and carefully replaced the hatch as quietly as he could. The space was only a few feet high and a few feet wide so they were forced to crouch down beside one another. The dim glow of a tiny control panel was their only source of light leaving them in near darkness.

Above them, the footsteps came all the way up to the entrance of the study and then stopped.

Rip held his breath.

“Huh, I guess he’s not in here,” said the muffled voice of Raymond Palmer. “You know I could have sworn I heard…”

“Then where the hell is he?” asked a second voice, the voice of Jefferson ‘Jax’ Jackson. “He’s not in his quarters, he’s not in the galley, he’s not in the engine room.”

“He must be somewhere.”

“But where?”

For once, Rip really hoped his team wouldn’t think of the obvious solution.

“Gideon?” said Ray.

Bollocks, Rip cursed to himself.

“Yes, Dr. Palmer,” replied the A.I.

Rip leaned towards the control panel. “Mary Celeste,” he whispered.

Leonard gave Rip a sidelong look and raised an eyebrow.

Above them, Ray said, “Where’s Rip?”

“Captain Hunter is no longer on board the ship,” Gideon replied.

Rip breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Maybe he already left,” suggested Jax.

“I guess so,” said Ray. “You know I haven’t seen Snart around either. Do you think he left too? Gideon?”

Snart immediately started jabbing Rip in the side, glimmers of panic shining through his normally supercilious expression.

“Mr. Snart is…” Gideon began.

Rip leaned toward the control panel once more. “Gideon, add Snart to the Mary Celeste protocol,” he said as quickly and quietly as he could.

“…no longer on board the ship,” Gideon finished after the tiniest of pauses.

Both Rip and Leonard’s shoulders sagged in relief.

“Thank you, Gideon,” Rip said under his breath.

“That’s weird,” said Jax. “Do you know where they went?”

“Unknown,” Gideon replied.

“They’ve probably gone on ahead,” said Ray, dismissively. “They must have been really excited.”

Jax gave a doubtful hum. “Neither of them seemed really into it when we were talking last night.”

“How could they not be into it? This is going to be so much fun!”

Rip grimaced and Snart rolled his eyes.

“Everyone’s going to be there,” Ray continued, “Team Arrow, Team Flash, Kara and all her friends. Cisco says he’s picked out a ton of music to play and even planned a whole bunch of party games. It’s going to be the biggest superhero bash ever!”

Beside him, Rip felt Snart actually shudder.

“Come on,” said Jax. “We’d better let the others know.”

The footsteps could be heard once again growing quieter as the pair left the bridge.

Rip and Snart remained silent a few moments longer until they were certain the others were gone.

“That was close,” said Rip.

“You’re telling me,” said Snart. “You almost led them right to me.”

Rip flung up his hands. “How was I supposed to know you were hiding here? Why are you even hiding? I thought you of all people would enjoy going to this crazy… shindig.”

Snart raised his eyebrows. “A celebration for superheroes and their friends? Not really my scene. Besides, contrary to popular belief I’m not much of a party person.”

“Well, me neither,” Rip admitted.

“Since when?” said Leonard. “I’ve seen you blend seamlessly into more than a few fancy shindigs, not to mention fight your way back out of them.”

“Yes but that was during missions. This is different.” Rip gave a weary sigh. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not all that good when it comes to socializing.”

“No, really?” was Snart’s sarcastic reply.

Rip ignored him. “At least, you know some of the people there. The ones I know haven’t met me yet at this point in time which makes things rather awkward. If I went, I’d probably end up standing in a corner nursing a drink or spending the entire time making small talk.” He said ‘small talk’ with much disgust as if it were the worst torture imaginable.

Snart grimaced showing he had similar feelings on the topic. “Well, hopefully, the others will leave soon and we can both do something that doesn’t involve hanging out with a giant crowd of do-gooders and playing nice.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Rip gazed up at the trapdoor. “The coast should be clear now.”

Reaching up, he pushed against the hatch opening it a crack. A quick peek showed the bridge was indeed empty. Rip swung the hatch open all the way and pulled himself out; then leaning over, gave Snart a hand up.

“Thank God that’s over with,” said Rip. “Now, I’ll just have Gideon make sure—”

“You get to the party in time?” suggested a voice from behind them.

Eyes widening, Rip and Snart swung around.

Sara was standing at the back of the study, hands on her hips and glaring at them.

“Uh, M-m-miss Lance,” Rip stuttered. “We were, uh, just making sure the hidden compartment was secure.”

“Really?” said Sara, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes,” Rip said with the horrible feeling he was digging himself in deeper with each word. “We need to make sure it’s secure in case of, uh, possible incursions.”

Sara just stared, her intense blue eyes penetrating right through him.

“And, uh, I…”

“I would recommend quitting while you’re ahead,” said Snart, “or rather quitting while you still have a head.”

Rip wisely decided to take Snart’s advise and closed his mouth.

Sara folded her arms over her chest and took a step towards them. “Rip,” she said and then turning to Snart added, “Leonard.”

“Sara.” Snart gave what he probably hoped was a flirtatious smile. “How’ve you been?”

Sara glared at him and Snart quickly took his own advice and said no more.

“You two weren’t planning on skipping out on the big party, were you?” Sara glanced from one to the other.

“Would you believe me if I told you it was all Rip’s idea?” said Snart.

Rip rolled his eyes.

“You know how important this party is to everyone,” Sara continued, ignoring Snart. “It’s a time for us to gather together without there being a major crisis involved and you know how rare that is.”

“Rare and nowhere near as fun,” Snart couldn’t help putting in.

“Sara,” said Rip, tiredly. “I know how much you and the others have been looking forward to this but this type of socializing really isn’t our thing.”

“I don’t care,” said Sara. “You are going to this party and you are going to enjoy it. I happen to know a lot of the people there are looking forward to meeting you, Rip, and Leonard, don’t tell me Barry hasn’t been waiting to see you again.”

“But—” Rip tried to protest once more.

Sara didn’t even let him finish. “No buts. You are going and I want to see the two of you dressing appropriately too. No parkas or Old West gear.”

“Can I at least—” Snart began.

“No,” Sara repeated. “You are to be on your best behaviour. Is that understood?”

The two nodded reluctantly, shoulders slumping in defeat.

“Good,” said Sara. “We’re leaving in five so you’d better start getting ready.”

She turned and marched out of the room but not before sending them one final parting glare.

Rip watched her go, a glum look on his face. “What do you think she would do to us if we didn’t show up?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” said Snart.

“That’s probably wise,” said Rip. “I suppose this means we’re going.”

Snart slapped him on the shoulder. “Look on the bright side, a gathering of superheroes like this is exactly the sort of thing to draw out an attack from a major supervillain.”

Rip let out a sigh. “We can only hope.”


	22. A Few Hypothetical Scenarios

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A silly little something featuring Rip, Ray, and Gideon. 
> 
> I posted this on tumblr over three weeks ago and then completely forgot to put it on AO3. At least I remembered before I started working on the next one.

Searching through the Waverider for the team’s wayward captain, Ray was drawn towards the bridge by the sound of voices in conversation. It was an incomprehensible mumble at first, but as he drew nearer, he was able to make out some of the words

“What about…should stop…”

“The chances are…still be able to…”

“…makes no sense. Are you sure?”

Ray frowned. It seemed his quest was at an end. One of the voices was definitely Rip’s, but who was he talking to? As far as Ray knew, everyone else was in the galley already digging into dinner. He moved closer to the entrance of the bridge.

“I thought the Sahara would be a surefire spot,” Rip was saying.

A female voice replied. “My calculations still indicate a 74% chance of failure.”

Realization dawned. Of course, thought Ray. The second voice was Gideon’s. He had completely forgotten about the A.I.

“What about Easter Island, 200 B.C.?” Rip asked. “It should be sufficiently remote.”

“I believe you are underestimating their resourcefulness,” Gideon replied.

“Just give me the odds.”

“81%.”

Rip let out a frustrated curse. “Bollocks.”

Concerned, Ray stopped eavesdropping and strode onto the bridge.

“What’s wrong?”

Rip was standing by the console in the middle of the room. Upon hearing Ray’s voice, he swung around, an expression of guilt flickering across his features before he managed to compose himself.

“Dr. Palmer,” he exclaimed, “I, uh, didn’t hear you come in.”

“Sorry,” Ray replied. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Is everything alright?”

Rip clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Yes, yes. Everything’s fine.”

Ray’s forehead furrowed. “Are you sure? It sounded pretty serious to me. Is there a new aberration we need to worry about? A new enemy? Should I get the rest of the team up here?” he added, pointing a thumb over his shoulder back the way he had come.

Rip raised a hand in the air. “No, no, no, no. It’s nothing like that. Gideon and I were just, uh…” He cleared his throat. “…discussing various hypothetical scenarios. Weren’t we, Gideon?”

“We were,” the A.I. concurred. “The Captain likes to make use of my predictive capabilities to prepare for various eventualities.”

“Cool,” said Ray, nodding. “That actually sounds like it could be very useful. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No,” Rip replied quickly, “I believe we have everything in hand, but thank you, Dr. Palmer.”

“No problem.” Ray had a funny feeling there was something he was missing, but the feeling was forgotten as he suddenly recalled the reason he had been searching for Rip in the first place. “Oh, I’m almost forgot. I came to tell you dinner’s ready. We should head down to the galley before the rest of the team has eaten it all.”

Rip nodded. “I’ll be there shortly. I just need to finish a few things here first.”

“Don’t take too long.” Ray turned to leave but he had only taken a few steps before he turned back around. “Before I go, I should probably warn you about something.”

“About what?” Rip asked, absently, gazing at something on the console.

“The kitchen,” Ray explained. “It’s a bit of a mess.”

Rip looked up, eyebrows raised questioningly. “A bit of a mess?”

Ray winced. “Well, you see it was Martin and Mick’s turn to cook.”

“Martin and Mick?” Rip repeated. “Whose brilliant idea was it to place the two of them together?”

“Uh, mine?” said Ray, sheepishly. “I thought it might help them get along. I didn’t realize they’d spend the entire time arguing over how to cook things, or that the galley would end up splattered with gravy and smelling of burnt mushrooms.”

Rip let out a tired groan.

“Oh, and we might need to fabricate some new dishes,” Ray added, “and possibly a new oven.”

“Is there anything else I should know about?” Rip asked, rubbing his temple.

Ray winced again. “Well, you know the Ming vase in the library.”

“The one given to me as a personal gift from the Xuande Emperor? What about it?”

“Well, it met with a bit of an unfortunate accident earlier today while Sara and Snart were doing some target practice.”

Tension could be seen tightening the lines of Rip’s jaw. “Dare I ask why they were doing target practice in the library of all places?”

“Um, they said it was full a lot of good targets?” said Ray, eyeing Rip nervously as he awaited the inevitable explosion.

Rip’s face went through various interesting shades of red but thankfully there was no explosion. Instead, the captain took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

“Fine,” he said. “Just please make sure people clean up after themselves.”

“Right," Ray said with a nod, even though he knew his chances of convincing Mick to clean up anything were slim. “Oh,” he added, “and Jax and I are going to make sure the engines are back up and running by the end of the day.”

Rip stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean back up and running? Since when have the engines been down?”

Swallowing, Ray began surreptitiously backing out of the room. “Well, we were running some experiments earlier and things, uh, might have got a bit out of hand.”

Rip’s glare was so fiery it could have served as the ship’s new oven.

“But don’t worry,” Ray assured him as he continued to back away. “We know what we did wrong and there should be no problem fixing things, I think.” After adding the last, he quickly turned around and dashed out of the room. “See you at dinner!” he called out behind him.

Left with no one but his A.I. for company, Rip gazed up at the ceiling. “What about the North Pole, twelfth century?”

“Hypothetically?” asked Gideon.

“Hypothetically,” Rip agreed.

“Hypothetically,” the A.I. continued, “if you managed to abandon the Legends in the North Pole during the twelfth century, there is still a 72% chance they would manage to find a way back to the Waverider and a 67% chance they would cause irreparable damage to the timeline while doing so.”

“I’m never getting rid of them, am I?” Rip said in resignation.

“It does seem unlikely,” replied Gideon.

Letting out a world-weary sigh, Rip abandoned his hypothetical scenarios and went to deal with the chaos of another team dinner.


	23. Helping Hands and Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set early in season 1, here is some humorous fluff with a touch of whump featuring Jax, Rip, and Gideon

The sound of arguing voices wasn’t that unusual on the Waverider. In fact, after several weeks onboard the ship, it had pretty much become background noise to Jax. The crazy, mixed up, and more than a little volatile group Rip had put together to take down Savage loved arguing. They argued about everything it was possible to argue about. They argued about missions. They argued about dinner. They argued about who had drunk the last beer, whose turn it was to use the bathroom, and whether Star Trek or Star Wars was better. They even argued about arguing.

So Jax wasn’t surprised to hear the sound of yet another heated debate drifting down the ship’s corridors as he headed to his room after their latest mission. He was, however, surprised when he drew closer to the source and was able to recognize the two voices involved. 

The first was their captain. 

The second was the Waverider’s A.I. 

Their mission hadn’t gotten them any closer to finding Savage but had resulted in an explosion which had left Jax caked in dust and he really wanted to get to his room to clean up and change, but curiosity made him stop to listen.

“Where the hell is it?” Rip was demanding.

“2.9 centimetres to the left,” replied Gideon with more exasperation than Jax would have thought possible for an artificial intelligence.

“Here?”

“The other left and 3.3 centimetres further up.”

“I am not made of rubber, you know!”

“I am well aware of that fact. If you were, this never would have happened. You should be more careful.”

Jax could practically hear Rip’s eyes rolling. “Yes, thank you, Gideon.”

Confused, Jax followed the voices and found they were coming from the medbay. He peered inside.

Captain Hunter was in what he would have most likely described as a very undignified position. He was sitting on the edge one of the medbay’s beds in his shirt sleeves, his duster and leather jacket draped over a nearby chair, and had one arm twisted awkwardly around behind his back, his face flushing as he strained to reach for something with what looked like a small pair of pliers.

“Damn it!” Rip cried pulling his arm back around and tossing the pliers away. “I need something longer.”

“I did inform you,” Gideon admonished from the speakers in the ceiling.

Unnoticed in the doorway, Jax smirked. Apparently even A.I.’s weren’t above saying I told you so.

Rip got off the bed and went over to the storage cabinets at the back of the room where he began rummaging through the shelves. Various things clinked and clattered as he pushed them aside.

“There must be something here that would work.”

“Perhaps you should have stocked up on medical supplies before we left.”

“There wasn’t time,” Rip said dismissively.

He pulled something off one of the shelves. To Jax the thing looked more like an instrument of torture than a piece of medical equipment and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was meant to be used for. After gazing at the instrument thoughtfully for a moment, Rip tossed it over his shoulder and continued rummaging.

“If you had gotten me that robotic body as I requested,” Gideon said pointedly, “this would not be a problem.”

Rip let out a groan. “Don’t start that again. You already cause enough problems for me with the control you have over the ship. I am not giving you hands as well.”

“It would be for medical purposes only.”

“That’s what you said when you locked me in the medbay for three days.”

“Shall I let you die from your injuries next time?”

Jax covered his mouth as he stifled a snicker. They were arguing like an old married couple. This was a side of Rip and Gideon he had never seen before and one he never would have guessed at. When he first came onboard, Jax had assumed Gideon wasn’t much more than a talking computer, and as a result, the two of them had kind of gotten off on the wrong foot, but he was slowly coming to realize there was a lot more to the A.I., though only now did he realize just how much of that was sass.

With a sigh, Rip closed the cabinets and gazed up at the ceiling. “Are you sure there isn’t another way?”

“There is,” replied Gideon, a hint of smugness in her voice. “I can sedate you, disintegrate the object with a laser along with the surrounding tissue, and then regenerate the wound.”

“But I’ll be stuck here a whole day while I recover,” Rip protested.

“Then you’ll be able to catch up on your sleep.”

Rip shook his head. “No, no, no, no. I don’t have time for that. I’ll just have to get it out myself.”

“I was merely attempting to help,” Gideon said tersely.

Rip’s face softened. “I know, Gideon. I just…” He trailed off and his eyes lit up. “Wait.”

Diving for a cabinet in a far corner of the room, Rip stuck his arms deep into the bottom shelf and pulled out a brown leather case. It looked like old fashioned Doctor’s bag. Rip opened it up and went through the bag’s contents, tossing various things aside as he did so. After a few seconds, he gave a cry of triumph and pulled out something that looked like a cross between a set of pliers and a very large pair of scissors.

“This should do the trick.” He bent his arm over his shoulder, and using the tool, attempted to reach whatever it was on his back once again.

“4.2 centimetres to the right and 2.7 centimetres further up,” said Gideon.

“Yes, yes,” Rip said in exasperation. “Give me a minute. I almost have it. I just need to… Ow! Bollocks.”

Jax watched Rip struggle unsuccessfully for a few more seconds before deciding it really was past time he put the man out of his misery.

“Need a hand?” he called out as he entered the room.

Rip spun around, arm dropping back down and cheeks reddening. “Mr. Jackson. I, uh, didn’t hear you come in.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” said Jax, doing his best to hide his amusement. He pointed over Rip’s shoulder. “You got something on your back?”

“It’s nothing,” Rip said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Jax raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t seem like nothing to me.”

Rip sighed. “It’s just a splinter. I’m simply having a little difficulty removing it.”

“Let me see.”

Reluctantly, Rip turned around and Jax took a step closer finally able to get a good look at what was causing all the fuss. His eyes widened at what he saw.

“Just a splinter?” he exclaimed incredulously.

The sliver of wood stuck in Rip’s back seemed much too large to be called a splinter. An inch of it was visible but much more was hidden beneath the surface as it was in deep. Dried blood surrounded the wood staining Rip’s shirt.

“Seriously, how the hell did you end up with this thing in your back?”

“The explosion,” Rip said by way of explanation.

The explosion, the one which had marked the end of their latest disastrous mission. Of course, thought Jax. The explosion had been close enough to Rip to knock him to the ground. When the man had quickly got up again, Jax had assumed he had made it through unscathed, but apparently, Rip was very good at hiding injuries, or ignoring them, or possibly both. The blast had taken out several wooden crates and this ‘splinter’ as Rip liked to call it must have been part of one of them, an unfortunate projectile that found a mark.

“You should have said something,” Jax chided.

“It’s not like the injury was life threatening,” Rip countered, “and as you recall, we were a little busy at the time.”

Remembering the authorities who had chased them nearly all the way back to the Waverider, Jax grimaced. It was probably best they avoided 19th century China in future, and Japan, and anywhere else the East India Trading Company did business.

“You could have said something afterwards. It might not be life threatening but that thing’s gotta hurt like a bitch. Why didn’t you ask one of us to help you?”

Rip cleared his throat. “Well, I… uh… I hadn’t actually…” He coloured slightly and trailed off looking sheepish.

Jax raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Are you telling me it didn’t even occur to you to ask for help?”

Caught out, Rip made a face. “I admit the possibility had yet to cross my mind, but in case you hadn’t noticed, I haven’t had much experience being part of a team.”

“No, really?” said Jax, full of sarcasm. The captain’s many stumbles in his attempt to command the team were hard to miss. Not that his choice of team had helped much. Jax knew the guy was trying his best but it was pretty obvious he was new at this.

“It’s always been just Gideon and I,” Rip said quietly, looking away. “I’m not used to having, uh, other resources available.”

Jax shook his head sadly, wondering just what sort of things Rip had had to deal with on his own. “Here,” he said, holding out a hand. “Give me those plier things.”

“Forceps,” Rip corrected automatically as he handed them over.

“Whatever.”

Jax inspected the piece of wood again, then carefully took hold of it with the forceps bracing his other hand on Rip’s shoulder.

“Okay, on three. One…”

He yanked it out on two. It was an old trick but hopefully one Rip didn’t know.

Rip’s muscles tensed, but to his credit the man didn’t even flinch and the only noise he made was a hiss of air through his teeth as the sliver of wood came out, long and sharp and stained in red.

A thin stream of blood began leaking from the wound and Jax quickly grabbed a nearby hand towel to press against it. Grimacing at the sight, he remembered why he had never considered becoming a doctor. He had always preferred engine oil to blood.

“There you go,” he said as he kept pressure on the wound. “Much better.”

“Thank you, Jax,” said Rip, his relief audible. “Gideon should be able to take care of things now but I am very grateful for the help.”

“Yeah, well, try asking for help next time instead of wasting time tying your arms into knots.”

Rip’s back shook as he gave a brief chuckle, something Jax had never heard from him before, something he hadn’t even realized he was capable of. “I’ll try,” the captain said.

“You’d better,” said Jax, levelling a finger at him. “Remember you’ve got a team now. You’re not alone anymore.”

Rip smiled wryly, and then gazing up at the ceiling, addressed the A.I. “Gideon, get the regenerator ready.”

“Already done,” Gideon replied, startling Jax slightly as he had almost forgotten about her.

“Good.” Rip moved away from Jax and laid down on the medical bed. “Then let’s get this over with. I need to get back to searching for Savage as soon as possible.”

Gideon’s voice grew reproachful. “I take it you’ll be ignoring my earlier suggestions of getting some rest?”

Rip rolled his eyes. “I’ll rest later. Stop nagging.”

“You do realize things would go much smoother if you listened to me.”

“I always listen to you Gideon. When have I ever not listened to you?”

“I can recall 1387 such occasions. Would you like me list them?”

Rip covered his face with his hands and groaned.

Jax grinned. Deciding to leave Rip alone to argue with his A.I., he exited the medbay and began making his way to his quarters and his long awaited shower.

He didn’t get far.

He was a dozen steps from the medbay and busy imagining how good it was going to feel to get all the dust and dirt off him when Gideon called out from above.

“Mr. Jackson?”

Jax stopped and gazed questioningly up at the ceiling. “Does Rip need me for something else?”

“No,” the A.I. replied. “I merely wanted to thank you for your help.”

Jax’s eyebrows rose in surprise. That was unexpected. With the exception of Rip, Gideon seldom spoke to the members of the crew unless they were needed for something. Of course, Jax admitted to himself, they tended to only speak with her when they needed something too.

“No problem,” he told her. “I’m glad I could help.” He took a step forward about to continue on, but then a thought occured to him and he stopped. “Hey, Gideon. You knew I was eavesdropping, right?”

“I know everything that goes on on the Waverider,” said Gideon, speaking haughtily as if the question were a ridiculous one.

“Then why didn’t you tell Rip?”

There was a moment of silence before Gideon replied, and when she did, it was with a certain hesitation. “Captain Hunter can be somewhat… stubborn on occasion.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” said Jax, “and?”

“And I’ve found sometimes a more indirect route is required when assisting him.”

Jax’s eyes narrowed. “Hang on a sec. Are you saying you let me eavesdrop because you wanted me to know what was going on and were hoping I’d help?” Once more, he found himself completely re-evaluating everything he thought he had known about the A.I. “Did you start an argument just to draw me to the medbay too?”

Gideon’s voice grew affronted. “Such a thing would be both deceptive and manipulative.”

“But if it helped Rip…” said Jax, things starting to fall into place in his mind. He sent a knowing look up at the ceiling, lips twisting into a wry smile. “You care about him a lot, don’t you?”

“Of course, he’s my captain. He has been so for over thirteen years.”

“And you’d anything for him?”

“I am merely following my function,” asserted Gideon.

Jax crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. “Whatever you say.”

“It’s not my fault Captain Hunter requires a lot of looking after.”

An amused snort escaped Jax. “How about I help you with that?” he suggested. “Keep an eye on him for you.”

“That would be much appreciated, Mr. Jackson,” she said gratefully.

“But maybe next time ask for my help instead of starting a fight with Rip to get my attention.”

Gideon’s voice regained its haughty tone. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh.” Smirking, Jax continued on his journey down the corridor.

Apparently, what he had said to Rip earlier had been wrong. The man might not have had a team, but Rip Hunter had never truly been alone.


End file.
